The Bright Side

Fat ankles are way easier to shave.

My mother comes from a long line of bright side gazers. For her and her people the cup is not only half full, it's getting fuller all the time. She has a gift for finding the silver lining, the up side, the other hand.

I mostly blog for me. It is a marvel and wonder to me that anyone reads it, and even more so that it does anyone any good. So, for my own sake, I am writing today about the bright side of staying pregnant. You might think, "duh!" If you think that, don't read my blog anymore.

I have little theories about how God did things a certain way that help us, like putting smell in poop so we know to get rid of it, or making us need sleep so He has a chance to get new mercies in the morning, or making the end of pregnancy miserable so we are nutty enough to be glad when labor starts. I'm there. So this is my personal coping for the last few days/weeks of pregnancy.

It is good for me to have each day of enjoying my external children, especially the little ones. Each snuggle, each story read, each time with each young one while we wait is good. I am a woman divided between 12 humans. Soon each of them will get only a 13th of me. So now is good for my heart and theirs, and helps us all be more ready to share our slice of mom further.

It is good for my baby to have more time to get bigger and stronger. The bigger and stronger little Dozer is, the healthier he/she will be, the better at nursing and sleeping and waiting. Each day makes us more likely not to be jaundiced, not to have trouble maintaining temperature, not to have difficulty nursing or have low blood sugar. Each day pregnant is a day sooner to be reunited and returning to normal after delivery.

It is good not to have a baby in a blizzard (not that we actually got one, but we did have major highways closed and my husband stayed home to work two days, which never happens).

It is good to get my house and family more ready for my absence. There is laundry to do, dishes to do, my bedroom floor to find, supplies to purchase. And while there will always be those things with us (like "the poor you will always have with you," said Jesus), I would like to be in a much better place with those things. I am not ready.

The more pregnant I be when I go into labor, the better said labor will go. All of my experience bears this out. If I want to have a great labor, I will wait to have a late labor.

There are some events, good and bad, that would be better over and done with prior to baby's arrival. These things also will always be there, and some I cannot possibly make, but in the near future, there are things that must be done, and for them, I will gladly wait (or patiently, anyway).

At almost 40 years old, I have to be honest and say, this is certainly one of my last pregnancies, if not the last. As uncomfortable as I am, as difficult as it is to put on shoes, as large as my feet are if I don't wear them, as lousy as reflux is each night, as ginormous as I feel, this may be my last time to feel this way. And pregnancy, at its worst, is still a very good way to feel.

Finally, waiting is an exercise. I'm better at waiting than I used to be, better at trusting than I once was, better at resting in my Father's arms, more convinced than I have ever been that He knows the date and time and way my baby will be born, that it is the very best for me, for baby, for my family and for others, though I may not know why this side of heaven. I have been young, and now I am old(er) and I know I will not be forsaken if I trust in Him. And I do.