Willing to share

I had these delicious plans to spend the afternoon at Serious Coffee, with a decaf Americano, my Bible and laptop; but it was not to be. I got home from the office and noticed those weird squiggly things disrupting my vision that sometimes signal an oncoming migraine, so I thought I'd better stick closer to home. So, I'm in my kitchen. No Americano. But I do have some steamy hot chocolate, my Bible and my laptop. Later, I will continue preparing a sermon for Sunday. For now, I will update the blog.

I had two interactions this week that confronted me with the reality that I don't write here nearly as often as I should. One was a casual comment made in the midst of a phone conversation with a beloved friend: "I want to share in this experience with you!" The other was a simple, straight-forward email: "Willing to share? I would love to see another pregnancy pic." I can't make any fake promises about how often I intend to blog from now on, or insist that I'll be better at this down the road. But I can say that those comments have made me think long and hard about what it means that me, my life, and my unborn baby are far away from many people that I deeply care about, and how important it is for me to prioritize taking the time and finding the energy to bridge that distance. "Doing life together" or "living in community" is so much harder when you have a continent between you, but it certainly can be done - and I think I need to make more of an effort.

With that being said... on with my update. This baby has been on my mind a lot lately. Part of that is because it forces itself on my mind. Little feet and little knees and little hands and a little bum tend to stick out of my sides at multiple times each day, and that is hard to ignore. But the other part of it is because S/HE is COMING SOON! My mom gave me this little countdown calendar when I first became pregnant. I remember when the note on the corner of the page said something like, "200 days until your due date." The morning it said, "17 days". On Friday, I'll have reached the 38 week mark. Holy cow.

Because this baby is coming soon, I'm having a hard time relaxing. Whenever I'm at home, I'm doing something. I've wiped every bit of dust off our baseboards. I've reorganized our dresser drawers and bedroom closet. I've sat in the baby's room a gazillion times and thought about how to make better use of the space.

That's all part of getting ready, I suppose. And on the whole, I DO feel ready. I have brief little moments where I look at David, catch my breath and think, "Do we really want to invite a third person into our home? Into our life?" I have moments where I think, "Oh no! We haven't installed the car seat yet!" But mostly, I'm eager to meet my child, eager to grow into motherhood, and excited to have my body back to myself.

Speaking of body, here I am with my baby bump. "Bump" doesn't seem to quite capture it, though, does it? It's more like "here I am with my basketball."

33-ish weeks

35-ish weeks

37-ish weeks (today)

And, speaking of getting ready, I'm not the only one experiencing a deep need to busy myself with baby-related tasks.