I've had this post brewing in me for a couple of months now, and for some reason it just wouldn't come out. I have no idea why.
I'm having a baby.
To be more specific, I'm having a baby girl. Lucy.
As I type this, she is nestled snugly under my navel, and every now and then I can feel her twitch, or kick, or roll over or flutter. Today, for the first time, I felt her kick from the outside, which is both magical and scary considering I'm barely over half way to her due date.
It's all a really big deal. Of course, all babies are a really big deal. Miracles. But to me, this baby is the biggest kind of really big deal. She represents a lot of really great things in my life: love, healing, fullness, joy, peace, contentment, and arrival. That's probably a lot of expectation to put on a 1 pound fetus.
A few years back I had a different baby in my belly, and I placed a lot of expectation on him too. But the unfortunate truth is that the expectations were completely different. With him I saw desperation, fear, longing, and survival. My desire at that point in my life was for that sweet, innocent baby to fix things. Again, a hopelessly unrealistic list of things to hope for from someone who had yet to see the light of day.
The truth is that as quickly as E was growing inside of me, my marriage at the time was just as quickly breaking down into unrecognizable bits of life that scared the hell out of me. The months leading up to his birth, and the first few months that followed should have been joyful and exciting. Instead, with the exception of getting an amazing kid out of the deal, they remain a part of the saddest and most disappointing time in my life.
Now, almost 6 years later, I know a few things to be true. And here they are:
That kid, the one that was born in the darkest part of my life, is the biggest source of light in my world. He didn't fix any of the things that I thought he would, and yet he has fixed everything in me that I didn't realize was broken. I am a better person because he walked into my life, and I am healed all over again every time he walks into the room.
This kid, the one that is lazily napping under my ribs, is my 'full circle'. She is a chance to get it right, and a chance to experience the precious moments of pregnancy in the light instead of the dark. I have full confidence that she will deliriously complicate my life in the way that only a fitful newborn can. And I firmly believe that her very presence in my world will shift it on its axis, and I will be yet again, a new woman because of her. I can't wait.
I have a kick ass husband. Because of his daily presence in my life I know exactly two things: 1. There absolutely is a God. and 2. That that God gracefully and mercifully loves me. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a husband like that.
Time heals a big fat bowl of nothing. In and of itself, time will tick by and tick you off. Had I just sat there in the last 6 years of all that vast obnoxious time, I would have ended up a hateful, bitter wad of a woman. The key is doing something with the time. I cried a whole big bunch. I moved. I went to school. I dated stupidly, I graduated, I began a career, I fell in love, and I prayed, searched for, and found forgiveness and healing. Life got better, not because time went by, but because I chose a better life.
Every little kick from my baby girl reminds me to be thankful that I'm not who I was and I'm not who I'm going to be. I'm learning that a really good life isn't made of milestone moments, but by embracing the tiny fits and flutters.
I'm finally loving them all.
