here we go again...

Looks like we are going to have another one!  Nothing like seeing that little "teddy bear" waving and kicking in there to give me motivation to push through the challenge of nausea and enervation in the first trimester.

Photograph taken: 9 weeks

Due Date: September 10, 2011

Current Gestation:  14 weeks

A friend's husband once mentioned that he thinks about what he is going to eat at his next meal about 6 times an hour.  I didn't believe that was humanly possible until I got pregnant.  Apparently, I am now able to relate with men more than ever as my stomach has began to control my every thought.  There is about an hour gap between 2nd and 3rd lunch.  The entire time I am dreaming of the peanut butter, banana, yogurt smoothie I will use to wash down the pizza and brussel sprouts.  When those aren't available, I try not to panic. 

The strange thing about being pregnant is that I can't seem to take my eyes off of ME (and I don't mean the way I look in the mirror, although that is pretty shocking too.)  It is like wearing a pair of selfish-glasses; when I am looking through them all I can see is my own physical discomfort, the food I need to eat, the sleep I need, the way I feel when I am nauseous, the things that I couldn't possibly do when I feel this way.  It is hard to see past myself to the others around me that need some nurturing of their own.  It can't honor God to be so selfish.

Perhaps experiencing all of this discomfort is meant to change me for the better.  Perhaps that was the design from the beginning.  Pain is never enjoyable, but perhaps it can be used to refine us as people, grow compassion in us, and remind us that comfort is not to be take for granted. 

Eve is credited with gifting women with the "pain of childbirth", as described in Genesis.  Based on her behaviour in the Garden of Eden, I realize that she too had issues with selfishness.  But after the birth of her first child, which most likely included the pain God had promised, she still says "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man." (Genesis 4:1, italics mine)  God did not abandon her in her pain, but assisted her.  He made allowance for the trouble it was going to cause in her life, and our lives too.  So, as I emerge from the fog of the first trimester, I pray that this season of malaise has changed me in some permanent, tangibly better way. 

In the meantime, it is time I gave a huge THANK YOU to my fantastic hubby for picking up the slack around here, being flexible about dinner and extra messes around the house, doing all of bedtime duties and midnight wake-up calls with our daughter (which are suprisingly frequent for a 2 and a half year old), and for being an overall compassionate and sensitive man durating a very looooooong two months.  I am coming back to life.  Getting up off the couch, making dinner, cleaning something, wiping the look of disgust off my face... its a start.  Thank you, My Dear, for having grace for me!

Apparently humanity loves children enough to keep having babies.  At the moment, it seems a slim possibility, but one day I might forget about this season of me-ness and think that my pregnancy was easy.  Somehow that smiling, wide-eyed baby that arrives after 9 long months makes it all worthwhile.