Well, hello there. :)
This morning could not be more perfect. And I'm willing to bet it's one of the last mornings of it's kind for a long time. Granted our new mornings will be a brand new kind of sweet, but I'm savoring this one for exactly what it is.
It's 8AM. I've been up for an hour. Candles are flickering in the fireplace. Birds are twittering outside, just loud enough to be heard sporadically over the soundtrack of the Austin Stone worship band. My darling husband is reading something on his phone in athletic shorts and a t-shirt and boat shoes. Our sweet, rotten 2 year old furball curled up next to him on a Mexican blanket that I bought in a border town during a Spring Break mission trip my junior year of college. The room is clean and comfortable, and apart from a bag of unfinished thank you cards on the floor at my feet, not much is out of place. There isn't a baby toy, a pacifier or a wadded up diaper in sight. There's a brand new high chair tucked into the corner next to the hutch in the dining room, and two boxes containing a baby food maker and a swing stacked not far from it, waiting to be opened.
The table is set for breakfast for six with disposable plates and plasticware, laid out as fancily as possible. In 25 minutes, our friends will arrive with donuts and fruit and juice and we'll sit down to eat and talk about the giant adventure that all six of us are chasing.
And the three little ones who are growing toward a first birthday will quietly enjoy sausage casserole and John Donut and a tiny bit of caffeine as their parents-to-be talk and smile and laugh and wonder what in the world life is going to look like with them in it.
I'm 37 weeks pregnant today.
I can still hardly believe that sentence applies to me. That means we made it! God has blessed me to carry this little girl to term, and if she were to decide at any moment that she's tired of the scenery of my womb, she could come out and no one would freak out (well, except me) and no one would stop her. She could literally be born at any moment, plunging my body into the craziest, most beautiful trauma I've ever experienced. I am terrified. I am intrigued. I am-- sort of ready. :) My desire to see her and hold her is stronger than my desire to not be in pain. And while I know she'll probably hang out in there a little longer, every action I take makes me wonder if it will push her over the edge. Every position I wake up in, with her wiggling around trying to get comfortable, makes me wonder when her little baby brain will finally think "I've had enough! I want out!" Because she's so high functioning, like that. :)
I am so grateful for the incredibly uneventful and positive pregnancy I've had. I'm so grateful for all of the gifts that have been given to us by family and friends in the last few months. I'm so grateful for an amazing family, 4 grandparents and an auntie who could not be more supportive or excited to meet this little girl. And an extended family so diverse that Violet's world will be a potpourri of skin tones, dialects, personality and life experiences from the very beginning. I am so excited to see how she grows up.
But I guess I've got to deliver her before any of that happens.
Fortunately, I come from a line of brave women who endured pregnancy and labor through the hardships of war and poverty. A mother who endured surgery so that my own life could begin. And a warrior of a grandmother who once literally shook her midwife awake to cut the cord as she finished birthing her own child, in her own bed, in the middle of the night.
So I'm going to be okay. :) And when it's over, Violet will be here and I will do my best to keep you posted on the brand new sweetness that will accompany the arrival of the newest Genteman.
