Thursday, February 3, 2005

I’m still amazed…(26 weeks)

I’m still amazed that I am 26 weeks pregnant - that Elliot has (thanks to God) stuck around…and the reality of holding my little boy in my arms is getting more possible every day. WOW! My friend Steph shared with me a neat saying the other day, and I can’t remember how it went exactly, but it talked about how when God allows us to go thru trials and waiting periods for something, it makes us all the more grateful when we finally recieve the gift. Truly, the significance of holding a living child in my arms is so much greater, now that I’ve known the loss of others, and had to wait longer than I expected to have a baby.

God is so good, and it is also amazing to look back and see how He has transformed trials in my life into blessings. I got to spend time with two of those blessings on Tuesday night. I have two special friends that I wouldn’t even know, had I not dealt with PCOS and had miscarriages. They are very special women and are treasured gifts from God. It is a true reminder that when future trials come, I can more easily accept them, knowing that out of them God will bring wonderful blessings.

The weeks seem to be flying by…and I have so much to do before he arrives! We want to start working on the nursery but we have water damage from the rain & the contractor is having a hard time getting our upstairs neighbor to arrange a time for them to get into her condo to fix the problem. It’s quite frusterating & I’m not sure what we’re going to have to do to get it fixed. But once it is we’ll begin! I took some ‘before’ shots yesterday so we’ll be able to compare the transformation - I can pretend I’m on one of the home-decorating shows on TV. Except, I won’t be painting of course - Charlie will have to take care of that! :-)  Neither one of us wanted to do a big ‘theme’ but we will have some basketball stuff in there for accessories. For example, we’re going to have his name on the wall in wooden letters, and the ‘O’ will be a basketball. The practical side of us wants most things, especially expensive things, to easily convert to unisex if we were to have a girl later on & still live here.

Posted by Bren at 16:54:52 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Is this your first?

I get asked that innocent question a lot. Generally my answer is “yes.” I mean, what else am I supposed to say? I know this person wants to know if this is the first time I’ve experienced a baby move inside of me, if this will be the first child I hold in my arms, the ‘oldest’ of future children to come. So I answer yes. Yet, there is a part of me that wants to answer “No! this is my THIRD child, there are two others, but while I never got to hold them, they are in heaven.” But I suppose that would be like explaining what a horrible awful bad day you’re having when someone casually asks “Hi, how are you?” when of course the expected response is “fine.” While I wish there was an easier way to answer truthfully, I don’t mind the question, and it doesn’t offend me in the least. Someone is kindly taking interest in my life, and asking a truly common, and generally easily answered question. And when I answer yes, they  they share more things, telling me what it might be like when Elliot arrives, what it was like for them, etc. If I were to simply answer no, they would think I’d already experienced childbirth, and taking care of an infant, and I would miss out on what they would share to a ‘first time’ mother. Occasionally when it feels appropriate I do share a little more, and it feels nice to validate the lives that were inside of me for such a short time, the two little ones I will meet one day.
Posted by Bren at 16:36:58 | Permalink | No Comments »