Today I am 25 weeks pregnant, which means I have three more weeks in my second trimester. Which means I am that much closer to my life completely changing. This month has been a hard month for me in my body. Starting with me getting so sick and dehydrated, I ended up in the ER, where I discovered I had the flu and a UTI both of which are a bit more intense while pregnant. Don’t worry I am now back to myself and baby girl is healthy, strong and very wiggly.
But my body is changing, I am bigger, and not just in my belly, I am tired and sore and uncomfortable. No one really talks about how uncomfortable being pregnant actually is. I mean you are growing a human so I suppose you should expect it to be hard, but ladies, if you are planning to get pregnant in your life I am telling you now, that it is HARD.
And I haven’t even mentioned the hormones. One time I cried after watching a Taekwondo performance and by cry I mean ball my eyes out. Another time John came home from the store and with out me asking him he bought me some gold fish. (which is one of my pregnancy survival snacks) And when I saw the bag I, again, balled my eyes out because of how kind John was.
But out of all the changes in my body and the hardships of carrying a growing baby the scariest thing is the future. Amazingly enough I am not afraid to give birth (I’m sure fear will creep in at some point) but I am actually quite excited about the experience and I have been doing so much to prepare my body and mind for labor. I am afraid of becoming a parent, of my life completely changing, of becoming responsible for another life. And the hardest thing about it- the risk. The risk of heart ache. This song that I love called Nothing I Hold Onto has been really powerful for me. Part of my job as parent is protect my child, but I can’t protect her from everything. I am learning to hand her over to God to let go of the idea that I can control everything. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not control. This is hard. There is risk in love. When you love someone so much you risk loss. There is a lyric in this song that says “I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open” and it reminds me of Abraham giving his one and only son up. Handing his life over to God. And God’s response is to hand his son back to him. God’s invitation is for us to hold onto to God and the triune God will hold onto everything else for us. On the one hand this sounds like bliss. But on the other, it is hard. And scary.
What are you holding onto that God might be asking you to let go of?
This journey to parenthood has been beautiful, scary, empowering, confusing, exciting, hard, tiring, life changing. And it is only just the beginning. So thankful for those of you who have come around us and have supported us in words of encouragement, gifts, prayers, food, generosity, conversations and so much more. And I am eternally thankful for my husband, he is already an amazing dad. Always talking to baby girl, giving me back rubs, buying me goldfish, protecting me and just supporting and loving me in new ways.
Although this post shares the heavy challenges and fear I am carrying, please hear and know that I am so good. I am in an amazing place of light and Love and only because I am in this space can I fully work through, process and share with you the hard things.
May you also be in a space of light and Love
P.S. If you like the illustration of me from up above and are interested in getting your own done, then you got to check out my friend Amanda! check out her Instagram here and here Etsy shop here.
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