39 Weeks and 5 Days with Baby D #3

Tomorrow I will be two days away from my due date. Two. Days.

Our lives will be forever changed any minute from now or 1-2 weeks from now. Waiting on a baby is the weirdest thing right? There's nothing like waiting on a baby to remind you how much you are NOT in control. Some days I am better at giving up that control than others. Today, I am trying really hard to trust in His timing and not my own. 

Today I am 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant and can greatly relate with this lady that I found on Pinterest.

(http://thislittleadventureofmine.blogspot.com/2014/08/39-weeks.html?spref=pi)

I've entered Stage 5 of pregnancy according to the Scary Mommy blogger:

"You feel enormous and none of your maternity clothes fit. You want to crash through walls and shout “oh yeah!” like the KoolAid man. People keep saying “Haven’t you had that baby yet?” You have a new appreciation for how difficult it is for the elderly and morbidly obese to get around and swear you’re going to become an advocate for their rights once you catch your breath. You’re no longer scared of birth you just want this kid out of you and if that means pulling it through your right nostril, so be it."

That pretty much sums it up. I could add to the list of aches and pains and reasons why I am so done being pregnant, but instead, I'll leave you with a few lines from a book that I picked up again tonight after not giving it much thought at first. I was just telling someone the other day that I didn't really care for the book, Loving the Little Years, because it had too many analogies or metaphors or whatever those things are called. I wasn't really getting anything out of it. But in my insomnia,  I gave it another chance and found some really encouraging words in chapter 14 titled "Me Time" that I thought were particullary encouraging giving my current state.

"Motherhood is what your stomach was made for - and any wear and tear that it shows is simply the sign of a well-used tool. We are not to treat our bodies like museum pieces. They were not given to us to preserve, they were given to us to use. So use it cheerfully, and maintain it cheerfully."

The author goes on to say:

"Scars and stretch marks and muffin tops are all part of your kingdom work. One of the greatest testimonies Christian women have in our world today is the testimony of joyfully giving your body to another while so many women choose to not have children or abort the children that they were given, the testimony of women who know the cost and joyfully pay it is profound……… So realize that your body  is a testimony to the world of God's design. Carry the extra weight joyfully until you can lose it joyfully."

That last part is something I definitely want to remember in the next months as getting dressed becomes the question of "what will fit today." I want to enjoy my new baby and when the time comes, work hard to loose that weight with a joyful heart. I'm sure I will have to look back at this several times.

I read a few other chapters and they were all so good and so timely, which seems to be a theme lately. God is using books and bible studies to speak to my heart, just where I am at and I am so thankful. And since I have the worst memory ever, I do my best to document and put things in places where I can look back on them. I usually do that here, which is the reason for the quote overload today. Sorry friends.

In that same chapter in Loving the Little Years, the author Rachel Jankovic, suggests that our identity as Christian women is intertwined with our family, our husband and children. I would ague that our identity is actually in Christ and finding our identity in other people could be a dangerous thing, however, she did have a good point in that we don't need a day alone to shop to "rediscover ourselves" or find out what we are really all about. Instead if we're looking for "me time," she suggested going on a date with your husband or doing something special with your kids. And I think that I will do just that. 

Instead of banking a bunch of alone time before the baby comes, because who knows when I will get it again, I'm going to take the kids out to do something fun tomorrow. It probably won't be life changing, because it's pretty hard to move, but maybe I'll buy them a scone at Starbucks and let them pick out a drink that they always ask for, because it will only be just the two of them for so much longer. Hopefully not too much longer, but you get the idea. 

Here's to ceasing the day! Carpe Diem and all that.