Late Pregnancy: Feeling EVERYTHING

So here I find myself...creeping up on 34 weeks pregnant.  We have a short 6ish weeks left to wait for our beautiful baby Greysen to arrive!  It is *this* point in my pregnancy that I really start feeling myself slip into a completely different state of mind than I've been in up until now. It's some combination of deliriously excited, scared to death, as prepared as I can be, and also completely unprepared all at the same time. I've read all the books, checked everything off the to do list, and after next weeks OB appointment I will be seeing her once a week and she will be checking my cervical progress. Greysen is wiggling and kicking up a storm, and he's already around 4 1/2 pounds according to my perinatologist. When I say things are getting real, I'm not sure I've ever meant it as much as I do right now today!

When I say I'm "feeling everything", I mean that physically and emotionally. Physically my body is feeling the weight of Greysen's growing little baby body. My lower back is weak, my feet, ankles, and hands have begun to swell a little every day, I am frequently short of breath, and my belly feels impossibly huge for my body. I tire easily and when I get up from a sitting position I frequently need help and ALWAYS lead with my belly (which makes me look like a pregnant lady from the movies). Greysen is long and lanky like his Daddy, which means when he really gets going with his kicking and rolling around, I feel his movements from my lower right hip ALL THE WAY up into the left side of my ribs. He has already slowly started dropping into my pelvis, which means I have to run to the little pregnant lady's room about every hour or hour and a half these days.  Each day I have clusters of Braxton-Hicks contractions where my entire lower abdomen will tighten up. There's still relatively no pain involved with them, but each time they happen I am reminded that my body is preparing to go into labor soon. And miraculously it knows what to do already!

Emotionally I am quintessentially pregnant. The other day at lunch I looked at Jonathan and said "You know I really love you," and then I burst into uncontrollable tears. The only explanation I could give was "I don't know what this is about...I'm just pregnant I guess!"  I am irritable a lot especially in the mornings, because it takes my body so much longer and requires so much more effort to get going. I simultaneously feel like I'm ready for anything this pregnancy, delivery, and this baby might throw at me, while also feeling like I am completely out of my league in all of this. When I think about labor and delivery I think "Bring it on...I can totally do this!", while also thinking "Oh. My. God. WHAT have I gotten myself into??".  When I consider how radically different our lives will look in a few short weeks I am deliriously excited, but I'm also slightly mourning the loss of time that I get to spend just me and Jonathan. Eight years of uninterrupted husband time has me all sorts of spoiled! And while I'm determined to just "bring Greysen into the fold" and have him be a beautiful extension of our love and a perfect addition to our together time, I also know it will never be the same as it is right now. I get a little misty eyed just writing that actually...

But all in all, I am ready. I KNOW I can do this. I was made for this!  My body will go into autopilot here in a few short weeks, and I will be welcoming my beautiful son into this world. Oh how I cannot wait to feel his warmth and his weight on my chest mere milliseconds after he draws his first breath. How I can't wait to smell his baby head and kiss his impossibly soft cheeks. How I wont be able to contain my joy when I look into Jonathan's eyes while we introduce ourselves to our perfect baby and know that this joy was designed just for us to experience. There will never be a more perfect, more beautiful moment in our marriage. What we have prayed for, cried for, hoped for is finally here. So while we wait with great anticipation, say some prayers and send some good vibes our way. My how intensely our lives will be changed in just a matter of days...

The Healing Power of Solidarity

It is insane to think that I am already chipping away at my third trimester of pregnancy.  Seems like such a short time ago we were just starting this IVF journey, and now here we are 9 1/2 weeks or less away from holding our sweet baby in our arms!  Even though I constantly feel my little one wiggle and kick inside my belly, it's all still very surreal to me.  Last week I went back and read most of my blog posts and I was just so struck by how intensely God has been revealing Himself to me.  It's maybe the first time in my life when I can look back and say, "Yeah.  I heard Him right, did the right thing, and I am most certainly experiencing exactly what He wants me to be experiencing."  It's a completely different paradigm.  I just hope that when adversity hits later in my life, which it will, I can draw upon this time in my life and remember that God is GOOD and that His plans are GOOD and that His timing is PERFECT.

I have been so blessed by being able to share my story with so many women and I've also been blessed to be able to champion for them during their journeys as well.  It has been priceless to be able to share in the joy of someone else's success and happiness.  Equally, though, I've been blessed by the opportunity to offer strength and hope to my sweet ladies whose journeys aren't over yet.  My heart breaks for the women I know who have so recently experienced losses or failures on the fertility front.  But just as much as my heart breaks for their sadness, my "fixer" mentality screams "Just wait...I swear it gets better!".  And really, I swear it does...

I reread a blog post of mine where I speculated that if God places something on your heart so intensely that it just won't seem to go away, He truly intends to see that through.  And, y'all...He DOES!  He really, really does.  He wants you to experience ALL the good things in this life and in the next.  I still consider why it was that Jonathan and I had to go through what we have gone through to get pregnant.  There is still no medical explanation as to why this happened.  But I told a friend of mine the other day that I truly believe that we were just *meant* to go through IVF.  The bigger picture is one we really don't understand.  But I was meant to be a trailblazer.  And my babies were meant to be able to see pictures of themselves when they were just a tiny cluster of cells.  A short 4-5 years ago I would have told you with full confidence that IVF was NOT the thing for us.  But God changed our minds and our hearts in the perfect timing, and here we sit today.  Expecting our precious little one in May.  And my cup overflows with gratitude!

So I say all that to say this:
If you find yourself today where I was a year or so ago.  If you're feeling defeated, hopeless, ignored, abandoned.  If you're thinking maybe God will never answer your prayer.  If any of those thoughts or feelings float through your mind, do this instead.

1) Consider what in your life is a blessing right now today.  If I could have done this in my moments of deepest sorrow and hurt over infertility, I might have saved myself LOTS of grief...

2) Give it to Him.  Easier said than done...I know this FULL well.  But I had to get to the point where I said, "Ok God, if this isn't in the cards for me, take the desire away."  And I had to be ready for Him to do that and replace it with something better.  I finally figured out how to be ok with a "better replacement".  What I experienced was an intensifying of that desire to be a mother, but I feel strongly that if it truly wasn't in the cards for me, He would have removed the desire and filled that void with something more perfectly meant for me...

3) Don't be silent about your struggle!  THIS I cannot stress enough, girls.  DO NOT close yourself off and assume nobody understands or cares.  We as women experience a deep seated feeling of failure when our bodies won't do what they were supposedly created to do.  This feeling is intense and it physically hurts.  It stings.  And it makes lots of other things in your life even more difficult to deal with.  Find yourself an Infertility Counselor, talk to a pastor, find an empathetic girlfriend, message ME!  The healing powers of sharing and solidarity are more reparative than I can tell you.  It wasn't until I started this blog nearly a year and a few months ago that I truly started experiencing that healing.  Be bold, my sister.  Don't hide behind your perceived failure...

I am not naive enough to think that Jonathan and I won't experience difficulties in parenting or even maybe conceiving again.  This journey is by no means over for us!  But with the same intensity that I am completely head over heels in love with the sweet growing baby boy inside of me, I also want the same joy for the women out there who still find themselves knocking and knocking and wondering when that door will open.  I want to squeal with excitement right along side you when God blesses your life with either a child or something more perfectly meant for you.  He has not left you.  He hears you.  Rather than picturing Him with His arms crossed and His back turned to you, conjure up an image of Him gloriously painting the beautiful mural that is your life and your future.  Let me tell you...when He unveils that beautiful masterpiece, even if it's only a tiny little glimpse at a time, you will be speechlessly awed...