Mother Love

I’m here to talk about the last month of my life (brace yourself, hehe).

In case you were wondering…nope, we still haven’t had our baby! Clearly this little peanut is feeling super cozy and happy in there…although I can’t imagine feeling comfortable with as tight and squished as he/she seems to be in my ever-expanding belly. There is so much wonderful space out here, child…if you only knew!

In perfect honesty, the last month has been one of the most emotional + exhausting + overwhelming months of my life. I generally like to keep things upbeat and positive on my blog and other social media outlets, and I really believe it is pointless to complain about anything that we don’t like about our life or happen to be going through that is difficult. Complaining and negativity changes absolutely nothing, and actually only makes things feel worse. Hence, the primary reason I haven’t blogged in a while…because I knew my heart wasn’t in the right place for talking through what it was feeling.

I posted a little bit here about the change in our due date, and while I am so grateful to have realized the mistake we made in setting April 15 as the forty-week mark of our baby’s life, it has been really hard to mentally make the shift in my mind and heart. We made the colossal mistake of thinking that maybe we would have our baby early, since things were looking labor-positive towards the end of March already. We started living on the edge of our seat way back then…just waiting for things to happen and for our little one to drop into our arms. #rookieparents

And day after day, nothing did. As we got closer and closer to the fifteenth, the excitement and anticipation only got stronger…surely this thing had to happen soon. We could hardly stand the wait anymore! We could not wait to snuggle our baby and kiss little toes and smell newborn skin! And yet, the middle of the month came and went…and another week went by, and then another. Nothing was happening. There were twinges and pressure and a very low-riding baby, but that uterus absolutely refused to do anything to bring that baby into the world. Apparently, the uterus is the only involuntary muscle in a woman’s body, and I am here to testify that, yes, it is quite involuntary. You cannot make it do what you want. I knew all along that a due date is just a guess (especially if you haven’t done any ultrasounds and have somewhat odd cycles, i.e. myself), and that we really shouldn’t attach ourselves to a certain date…but let me tell you, it’s really hard not to. Maybe even impossible.

As each day passed, it became increasingly more difficult for me to stay positive and even excited. I was so weary of feeling disappointed with every day that went by without my baby in my arms. My emotions were so volatile, and I could go from laughing to crying in sixty seconds. There was something about the yearning and aching for the little life that I’ve felt inside of me for so long that at times felt completely overwhelming to me. I don’t know why it’s felt so hard to wait during these last weeks…maybe it’s the raging hormones or just my own lack of patience. I’ve struggled with trusting God, with feeling Him and hearing Him. Sometimes I felt so abandoned, like He was toying with my heart. People tell me that I’ve been brave and strong, but more often than not, I’ve been weak and anxious. I’ve cried more tears than I’ve ever cried before, and in so many ways, I don’t even know why. We have our baby…our child is healthy and alive inside of me…I know so many people who have either lost a little one or aren’t able to conceive…why can’t I be grateful instead of despairing?

There was this one day where I was out walking and crying and trying to make sense of my emotions, when I asked God why I felt this way…why do I feel so overwhelmed with this season? Why am I having such an impossible time being full of grace during these weeks or with letting go of an April due date? Why do I want this child so intensely much?

And you know…it’s because of love.

Somehow in the last nine months of my life, I have fallen in love with this little person inside of me. That love is what causes the longing and the turmoil and the overwhelming emotions when the fulfillment is different than what you expected and wanted. I’ll be honest, there have been moments when I’m tempted to shut down that love…because to feel it brought a kind of pain. If I didn’t let myself feel so intensely for this child of mine, than I wouldn’t have to deal with the emotions that came with it. But you can’t do that…you can’t ever shut down love to protect your own heart.

I know that our baby will come…and then all this waiting and longing will feel like a distant dream as we look into those little blinking eyes and touch that little wrinkled face and feel that soft skin. It feels like it will never happen sometimes, and I still have moments when I am overwhelmed and cry and ask God why this is happening this way…but every time, every single time, He is faithful to bring my heart back to a place of peace. We are learning to trust His heart of goodness for us, even when it feels like the goodness isn’t there or is such a long time coming.

We still aren’t totally able to nail down an exact due date, which is fine…because like I said, those are just guesses anyway. But a more realistic time-frame for a due date is sometime around this time. I’ve come to accept that reality, although I can’t let myself think about going late past this new date yet…I just have to take one day at at time. Many people have told me that God knows the best birth date for this baby, and I know that’s true…and I fight every day to trust Him with it and to let go of my own expectations. We’re about five weeks past what we thought and expected, but each day does bring us that much closer to holding our baby (yes!!!). We still cry and fight doubts and fears sometimes, but what an incredible journey it has been!

The Lord truly is good to us, and His mercy is new every day. We wait on Him with hope and anticipation for the birth of this child of ours!