Dressing in a too-tight maternity shirt that doesn't even quite cover my huge belly was not my plan for today. I was really hoping to be holding a sweet lil babe by now...or at least dressing in a hospital gown to head that direction.
Despite the date, Baby is still making his home inside my severely distended belly. He obviously hasn't been marking off the dates like his anxious mama. Today I am just trying to reconcile myself to the fact that I may just be lumpy for several more days...weeks...or possibly just forever. At this point, it certainly seems a real possibility. I was SURE he would come by now. As for him coming today, I read that only 5% of babies come on their due date. Not very good odds. But maybe there's only a 5% chance on any given day. That's not very good odds for ANY day. I might very well stay this way until all the odds are used up...is that like Day 295?
So I find ways to fill the days. I don't dare make any more food for the freezer. All of my freezers are packed. I've got frozen main dishes, side dishes, desserts, and breakfast items out the wazoo. Bags are packed. There are only so many days that I can "get everything imaginable done today in case the baby comes tonight!" Now that's just getting old. I'm resigned to the fact that when I leave, the house may not be perfectly clean. Every speck of laundry may not be done. There might be dishes in the drainer. It's exhausting to keep up with every single thing every moment just in case I'm headed to the hospital in the next hour.
I'm finding peace in the waiting. I was getting so impatient and frustrated. I wanted (to be honest, probably still want) this baby to come on MY schedule. I had just been thinking how tense I felt and how frustrated I was. Then I randomly (or not so randomly) opened the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp yesterday morning. I'd started reading it a long time ago and had never finished it. I found it and opened to the bookmark. What I read was meant for that exact moment. Where I opened the book, Ann was talking about Hagar and her son in the desert, dying of thirst, with a well full of water less than a bowshot away. Then I read this sentence, "In this wilderness, I keep circling back to this: I'm blind to joy's well every time I really don't want it." And this one: "What insanity compels me to shrivel up when there['s] joy's water to be had here?" Isn't that the truth. She digs in even deeper though, questioning why I don't want to drink from the joy well. Do I prefer the drama? Am I lunging for control instead of joy? Or do I simply think that God's joy doesn't hold the power to give me the full life? Then she asks, "If I am rejecting the joy that is hidden somewhere deep in this moment - am I not ultimately rejecting God? Whenever I am blind to joy's well, isn't it because I don't believe in God's care?"
Wow. Whatever situation I am in...God always provides a well. He doesn't change the desert into an oasis, but "[t]he well is always here." But I have to get up off my sorry butt and walk over to it. Drink from it. Accept the gift.
So my goal has switched from walking, eating pineapple, and all the other not-so-proven methods of inducing labor to simply finding joy in the moment.
Here we go. Finding joy in the waiting.
If the video doesn't show up, go to this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBwI7A7PfNo
No comments:
Post a Comment