birthday

It is May 21, and in a few hours my daughter will be born. Amped up before my surgery, I am wakeful early today, the sky is still grey, the house is quiet, and the air is cool coming in the windows, a morning pleasure I rarely get to experience. I am grieving the end of my pregnancy, of this special time where the more my stomach sticks out the prouder I am, of being awarded seats on the bus and train, of fertility, of God's obvious blessing. I am looking forward to relief from swollen ankles and feet, heartburn, constantly having to pee, the waddling walk, the dull backache, the uncanny sense of being host to a 9 pound parasite. I am anxious about the surgery, about the pain of the IV, the spinal anesthesia, the catheter, the resulting wound. I am harboring a low level fear of the worst - hemorrhage, infection, cancer, infertility, plus a whole host of unnameable concerns for the baby, all in varying degrees of ridiculous. I worry she will have trouble breathing, that she will be deformed or imperfect, that she will have a cleft palate, that she will be a he, that she has a disease or birth mark, that she will not be pretty, that she will be a difficult child. After 6 months of trying to get pregnant followed by 40 weeks and 2 days of living with this baby in my body, I am surprisingly unprepared for life with two children, and, even worse, at a base level am still not quite sure if I really do want to start this child rearing process again from scratch. Nathan's infancy was so long ago, we've come so far since then, and this feels like a lot of back pedaling and regression. I am excited, looking forward to hearing her first cry and seeing her face, only hinted at in shadow over these last few weeks of ultrasounds and monitoring. I am looking forward to holding her body curled and warm against my chest, smelling that spicy newborn scent, feeling that vast ocean of love and vulnerability open up inside my heart and gut. God bless this child. God bless this birth. God bless our parenting. God bless Nathan as he adjusts and makes room. God bless my body in the next few weeks of sleeplessness, lactation, supplementation, nurturing, healing. God bless my marriage, fill it with strength and mutual concern, compassion, and kindness. Give us so much slack to cut for each other, a supernatural inclination towards partnership and forgiveness. God bless this baby, give her health and beauty, let her thrive, Jesus, in every way. I am grateful for this pregnancy, for the gift of it beginning and the gift of it ending. I am grateful for my family, just now starting to wake up around me. I praise your plan for us, Lord, and agree with it. You are God, your love endures forever. "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever."