Peace Out

Fifteen weeks to go. Only two more rounds of swimming lessons at the YMCA. Three book clubs. Four Sunday brunches with the girls.

It's enough time and not enough time. I'm trying to enjoy so many things at once, to immerse myself in this time with Saige and Garrett and Quinn before our lives revolve around a new tiny child, while still trying to take the time to breathe and sit a while, feel the tiny kicks, revel in the second-nature comfort my every movement provides.

Fifteen weeks is nothing. A blip. A semester. Half a life time for the little being growing away inside me.

Twenty-five weeks. Front and rear view.




This last pregnancy is more than half gone. I'll never sit again with the calendar, counting. The ultrasound last week showed a baby, small but active, all the parts in place, development in full swing.

The midwife called the next day to tell me that everything looked perfect, growth on track, just one small concern. The cord is wrapped once around the baby's neck, probably not a problem, a slightly higher risk, so small as to be almost unintelligible from the general risk, which is incredibly low at this point in a pregnancy.

Of what? I know, of course. There is always a risk. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is completely risk free. No joy this great can run along a track without the shadow track beside it of pain and loss and fear. From here, though, truly, the view is beautiful and the shadow is just that, a part of the landscape. An accepted presence. If anything, it highlights the sunshine pouring down.

Still, it made me think, as much as I want this time to last, as much as I try to slow down and hold on and remember, as much as I am an optimist, for the most part, and I trust and I worry only at odd moments, it will be a relief and a gift when this baby crosses over the divide into breath and presence and we can see, feel, check. Still breathing. Still moving.

I'm not a stranger to the shadow side of bearing children. I know a little of that pain and I have a healthy fear. I'm not particularly faithful, in the religious sense of that word. But, strangely, I have faith. Faith in good outcomes. Maybe it's blind, foolish faith, but it's there. Maybe it's the same blind, foolish faith that lets me buckle my kids into a minivan and drive them around town, when clearly, statistics show, it's a dangerous activity. It's the same blind faith that allows me to tuck them in at night, kiss them once and leave them until the morning.

Don't we all kind of have to have it? The only alternative is constant fear and that would be horribly not fun.

I just felt him kick me, hard, low in my pelvis, as if to say, quit dwelling, just find peace in this day and this night and these little kicks and go to sleep. Just like he (or she, no we really don't know) said at the ultrasound, flashing the peace sign at the technician and I. (Those are fingers, promise, she enlarged it for me because we thought it was cute.)



Peace, momma, peace. Just live it. Let the shadows lie.

And I will. Can you believe it? I will. I'll fall asleep tonight and I'll wake up and dive into our crazy day. Get dressed. Breakfast. Walks. Play with me. Can we dance? Will you help me? Can we color? Lunch. Quiet time, laundry and email and some reading. Play with friends. Watch a movie. No hitting. Do you need a break? I'm hungry. I'm making dinner, help me with the plates, put your cups on the table. Clean up. Pajamas. We can play one game. Stories. Songs. Bed. Breathe. The baby moves and I notice, for the first time all day, I notice, I smile, all okay then, I hadn't thought of it once. Is that awful? Wonderful?

I choose wonderful. Life is wonderful.



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Shhhhhh. I'm guest whining at Andrea's today while she endures jury duty. I'd love it if you said hi. Unless you never feel abysmally petty and then, hmmmmm, um, Carolyn is lovely and hardly ever whines.