Adding to the Nest

We're thrilled to be welcoming baby #2 in early December and just found out that HE will be a BOY!

Half-way through, I'm grateful for another healthy and relatively easy pregnancy. I'm also so excited to be sharing this experience with my middle sister who is due with her first child two weeks after me!

Fiona alternates between being very excited about being a big sister (tonight during our pre-bedtime cuddle she told me she wished we could have 10 babies) and being completely ambivalent (when we asked her what we should name the baby, she said "Let's just call it, baby. Let's do art now.).

A Series of Moments

"I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn't know, I held opportunity.” - Hazel Lee


Time is ticking away and I find myself at the start of my third trimester. 12 more weeks to go!


Although I haven't been updating this blog very often, it's not for lack of reflection on this process. Not at all. Instead, the process has been so personal - both miraculous and banal - that I'm finding putting it all into words extremely difficult.


Over the last few months, there have been amazing moments:

• Laying in bed one night after an amazing prenatal yoga class and recognizing that I truly love this little being inside me. I know nothing about her and yet feel more strongly about her than I ever have of anyone.

And irritating moments:

• Folks seem to think that pregnant women are wearing a sign that says "Yes, blessed stranger, please share your opinion with me." My latest favorite: Our brunch waitress nearly refusing to serve me cup of regular coffee and, when I insisted, insinuating that I would "doing anything to get that baby to come early." Thank you, madame MD.

And a lot of simple, beautiful, everyday life moments:

• Sitting on the couch with my husband's hand on my belly feeling our little girl squirm and experiencing complete contentment.
  
• Looking out the rear view mirror as I left my parent's house this weekend and realizing that the next time I visit that house I, myself, will be a parent.
• Hearing our little girl's heartbeat at each doctor appointment and completely forgetting day's worries and to-do lists.

In these moments, my life is changing forever. I guess it always has. I'm grateful that pregnancy has made me notice.

What is it the time for now?

"Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment.” - J. Donald Walters
A colleague with divinity background once told me that this is one of his favorite questions for reflection: What is it the time for now?

As I think back on how I spent so much of my time over the last two years and how different that is from how I am currently spending it, the question keeps coming up. It's certainly coming up with regard to my physical activities - as I get lapped in the pool and watch others do intervals in circles around me and notice the bike in my shed that hasn't been ridden since November 1 and cheer for my friends as triathlon season begins.

More importantly, it's coming up as I think about this time in my life, my pregnancy, and the choices that brought to me to where I am today. I realized last week that I could not have done this even one year earlier. I wasn't ready physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally. For me, THIS is the time - the perfect time - to journey into parenthood. And while that means it's not the time for those other things, I know that it will be again someday. Instead now is the time to notice the process and not focus on the goal; now is the time to remember breath and form; now is the time to celebrate the pleasures of being outside and not worry about the clock.

Simply being -- instead of always doing.

Getting to Know You

"Children don’t belong to us…They are little strangers who arrive in our lives and give us pleasure and duty of caring for them – but we don’t own them. We help them become who they are." – Ruth Nuneviller Steinem

Nineteen weeks ago we did our first half-iron triathlon.

You: a collection of cells looking for a place to hunker down.

Me: a 30-year old woman no longer searching; instead, creating her life, fulfilling a goal, not knowing that you were there.

We crossed that finish line and instantly a new adventure began. Two weeks later, the test said YES and everything changed.

Now, I find it so difficult to find the words. Obviously, clichés exist for a reason. It’s so clearly no longer just about me. You are making this known in every way:

Physically- my body’s changing shape, the reality of new physical limitations, feeling your light, tapping (especially when it’s time for dessert).

Emotionally – new, less tangible goals, no coach to tell me what to do and how to do it.

Spiritually – a connection to so many who have walked this path before me.

Now, half-way to the day you’ll join us here, I finally believe that you are real and my excitement becomes more palpable every day. Now, I wonder who you will become and how we will factor in to that becoming.

How do we nurture our daughter’s developing soul life? We must allow her to grow in her natural ways, being open to her wildness, her quirks, her inklings toward her destiny. We must teach her to sing; tell her the old myths and stories; let her howl in the moonlight, or whatever behavior nurtures her unique nature. Our daughter’s soul development requires us to defend her right to go her own way. - Raising a Daughter: Parents and the Awakening of a Healthy Woman, Jeanne Elium & Don Elium