Out of The Cave

It's been quiet around here because I've spent the first three months of my pregnancy in hiding. If I could have holed up in a dark, secluded cave for the last twelve weeks, believe me, I would have! But of course, there is still a house to tend and a toddler who needs her Mommy, pregnant or not.

Since this pregnancy was deliberate-- not only planned but longed for-- I thought it would be smoother than my first. After all, I wasn't a surprised rookie. I had been through morning sickness, fatigue, the whole nine yards. No sooner did I put down my positive pregnancy test did I plan my pregnancy strategy in detail-- I would soldier on, making sure to keep the house together, exercise daily, restrict my diet, and spend extra time teaching Ember all the things I wanted her to know before the baby got here. I bought sewing patterns for maternity clothes and infant clothes, determined to make my own pregnancy wardrobe as well as the baby's layette. I would be a Uber-Capable Mom!

A week later, I was on the couch, convinced I would never move again short of flood or fire. I couldn't drink anything but bottles of water tinged with ginger ale and didn't want to eat anything that wasn't a carbohydrate. The exhaustion surprised me with its sheer....exhaustiveness... as I often found myself unable to function longer than thirty minutes without collapsing on the couch for a cat nap. I didn't remember being that tired with the first pregnancy but then again, I didn't have a toddler. (Ember, for the record, was heroic. She tucked her baby doll blankets around me when I was tired and patted my head or my tummy. Once she learned what my anti-nausea drops were, she'd bring me one every time I started to gag. I couldn't believe that my two year old little girl was mothering me.)

As for my sewing plans, I found that I could even look at material or yarn without getting sick. My husband had to pack all my craft supplies away in the garage, where I couldn't go anyway due to the smell of the cat's litter box, which is practically mustard gas to my pregnant-lady nose. Ah, maternal bliss!

But the most unexpected and difficult aspect of the trimester was the emotional upheaval that caught me completely off guard. In my first pregnancy, I was actually less emotional because I was no longer on birth control pills (which made my hormones wonky) and I expected little to no change with the new baby. Wrong. I found myself smack in the middle of a completely irrational depression that stuck to me like a rock in my chest no matter what I did. It didn't make sense, I told the Lord. I wanted the baby. I was amazed and grateful for His timing and for the new life in me. I had family support and a network of fellow moms who all would help me in any way I needed. More than that, I had the Holy Spirit and His daily grace to sustain me. Why couldn't I shake the black dog on my heels? The experience was very similar to my post-partum depression after Ember's birth, which was hormonally influenced and disappeared once my body got back into sync. I hadn't expected to face that battle again until after the baby, and certainly not for an entire three months!

Sometimes we can't lift ourselves out of a valley. We have to walk on through, stubborn in our faith that the path we are on is right even if everything about it is going wrong. One part of me knew that I had to do whatever I could to order my thoughts then just grit my teeth and get through the days until my body worked out the hormones. Another part of my was disgusted at my failure to live up to my self-made idol of Capable Mom that I'd fashioned at the beginning of the pregnancy. Capable Moms do not crouch in the stall of the church bathroom sobbing for no apparent reason! They keep up their exercise programs and count their calories! They spend their first trimesters in a state of calm resolve, dealing with the physical and emotional upheaval with one hand behind their backs!

God let me beat myself up for a while (I insisted) before He put the question in my mind-- whose standard are you using to judge yourself? What you think other moms expect of you? What you think will give you the most control or pride in your ability to keep juggling all the balls? What about what He wants or expects of me? His yoke is easy and his burden is light, a far cry from all the rocks I piled on my back only to be confused when I couldn't carry them. I gladly exchanged my idea of a perfect pregnant mom for a simpler, more God-honoring goal: do what I can with each day and no more.

Now that I'm into my second trimester, the clouds have definitely started to clear. My body is settling into the pregnancy, physically and emotionally, but more importantly, I've gotten rid of the idea that I am the one in control of all of this. Pregnancy and birth, more than anything I've encountered in my life so far, demands surrender. I can cling to my illusion of control but God brought this life into the world and He's the one growing it every day. In His way, not mine. It is the same for the birth-- I can plan and hope and work towards a certain labor but only God knows how He wants this baby to come into the world. And what He choses will be best. Why do I keep having to re-learn that simple truth?
My job is faithfulness in walking the path, not steering the course. Every time I take over the map, I end up lost.

So it's out of the cave, back to the fresh air and sunshine. I don't regret my time there, or what it's taught me. I'm happy that I can now eat oranges without getting sick, go for a walk with Ember without collapsing on the couch, and look at the day with hope in my heart and strength in my bones. Because it's not about my strength anymore. What freedom! Who knows, I may even knit something.

Labor of Love

My two-year old daughter is out on a walk with her Grandma and I'm spending my few precious moments of solitude making a pumpkin bag for her first Harvest festival. The pumpkin print is making me sea-sick, thanks to my pregnancy nausea, and I'm not sure why I'm doing this when I can be curled up on the couch reading a book or-- wonderful thought-- sleeping. It's not like we're short on tote bags or old grocery bags around here; she'd be happy to lug anything around the festival as long as it was filled with candy. I wonder, for a moment, why I'm doing this when she isn't even old enough to appreciate the difference between a special Mommy-made treat bag and a Food Lion reject.

The answer is the same as so many other aspects of mothering--- it's a labor of love. We gift our children with so much of ourselves and our time but we don't expect them, in the young toddler years, to be overtly grateful. At least not in so many words. Our delight comes from their delight; our joy from their joy. Ember's smile when she sees her "candy purse" will be worth the half hour of rest I gave up to sew for her. No question about it.

I was pressing the seams in the finished tote bag when I realized that it's the same with God. When He gives our family something good-- a raise at my husband's job, a pregnancy after months of prayer-- I instantly worry that He'll take His blessings away if I don't "keep up the hard work" required to deserve such gifts. But He doesn't work like that. He gives good things to His beloveds for many reasons, one of which I believe is simply to see us smile. As with a mother and daughter, our joy is His joy. We're not toddlers--- we should know how to be grateful-- but even our most sincere gratitude is insufficient compared to His overwhelming goodness. Rather than diminish His kindness by expecting it to come with conditions, we should rejoice in what He has given.
It makes His heart glad when we bask in His lovingkindness.

Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gifts!

Nesting

A little over a month ago, I wrote this poem...

Empty Nest

come, little soul,
rest in my womb.
leave off now your long journey of skies,
dwell on my bough.

my branches are sturdy,
my nest is warm with birch bark,
with pine needles and stolen yarn.

i will nourish you with breadcrumbs
and lullabies,
i will warm you through snowfall and wind,
i will cradle you with evergreen.
i will be your shelter
and you
my promise of spring.

-------------------------------------

Now my womb is indeed become a nest, my prayer child a
tiny flesh and blood miracle, and my heart an overflow of joy.

Sleep well, my little bird. Sleep in peace and grow strong.

Beachcomber

She is like the tide, moving in cycles through my day; our moments of laughter or discovery are shells that she leaves on my beach, one after the other. I am like a toddler running from one to another with a basket, convinced that every one is more beautiful than the last. Someday the beach will be empty and she will be collecting shells of her own but for now I walk in amazement at the beauty each days brings to my feet.

Unwearable Dresses and Other Possibilities

I have on my kitchen table, at this very moment, an absolutely adorable, completely unwearable dress.

It started innocently enough.
A generous amount of leftover corduroy in royal blue kept winking at a pile of leftover decorator fabric in a simple blue and brown floral motif on beige. The decorator fabric gave it a come hither look or two and before I knew it, an idea for a retro-inspired jumper popped into my mind. I was even going to wear leggings under it, for crying out loud. I sketched and measured and constructed my little heart out, surprised that the entire process was going so smoothly, since it was my first adult dress.

My surprise was to be short lived. When I sewed up the last seam, snipped the thread, and tried my masterpiece on for the first time, I discovered a catastrophe. The bust was much too big, while the rest of the dress was much too small. I looked like a cross between an ill-dressed hooker and a potato sack.

My heart is still broken. Those two fabrics are so perfect for one another, and their ill-fitting end so tragic. Practically Shakespearean. My initial impulse was to deposit the whole thing in the garbage but I resisted the destructive urges and tried to re-vision my creation. Maybe I will be able to turn it into something I can wear. Maybe it will become a dress for Ember, or even a purse. If all else fails, I can make a scrap dress for her baby doll, who isn't picky when it comes to fit. With failure comes liberation, because new possibilities emerge from the scrap heap of my old plans.

Of course, my creative philosophizing always spills over into other parts of my life. Lately I've been feeling a bit like that dress-- out of proportion, busting at the seams in one part of my life and hopelessly inadequate to fill others. Thank God that he doesn't ditch me because I'm not yet a perfect fit. No matter how much I try to measure out my life, His design is always beyond my calculations yet somehow always exactly what I need. Like my gloriously abysmal dress, potential is inherent even in my current failures. I don't have to stay mis-matched. Every day I can seek to align myself more and more with the pattern God has laid before me. Sure, it hurts when he cuts but he keeps me stitched together and never leaves me dangling by a thread.

Had enough sewing analogies?
Me too. I'm going to nurse my bruised creativity in a cup of hot chocolate. The fabric will still be beautiful tomorrow morning and by then I'll have thought of five new ways to show it off. Long live unwearable dresses! Long live possibility!

Long live grace.

How I Miss You Now

How I Miss You Now

Not with burning,
not with that ache in my skin,
the feeling that part of me has been
wrenched out to exist elsewhere.
Not with longing,
nights restless under a full moon
in my solitary bed.
Not with grieving,
not with the lean grayhound of
loneliness stalking my steps.

These things I knew before
you became my flesh and bone.

Now I wait for you
like the shore waits for evening tide,
knowing that the water receding must
rush back to cover the sand.
Now I look for you
as a far-flung planet looks for its sun,
spinning in undeniable orbit.
Now I rejoice at your absence
for the returning makes your face all the more
lovely, all the more mine.

In Other Words: After Communion by Christina Georgina Rossetti

After Communion

Why should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God?
Why should I call Thee Friend, Who art my Love?
Or King, Who art my very Spouse above?
Or call Thy Sceptre on my heart Thy rod?
Lo now Thy banner over me is love,
All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod;
For Thou hast lit Thy flame in my a clod,
Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove.
What wilt Thou call me in our home above,
Who now has called me friend? how will it be
When Thou for good wine settest forth the best?
Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee,
Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast:
How will it be with me in time of love?