Monday, January 12, 2015

Having a baby without my momma

Pregnancy comes with a lot of emotions.

Wow.  Like a lot of emotions.

That pretty much sums up the last nine months of my life. 

I haven't been nearly as weepy as I thought I would be.  The first few months I felt like I was just staying alive-barely.  Thanks hyperemises Gravadarum, there are many ways in which I would like to have my life mirror Princess Katherine, this was NOT on the list.

After I started to feel better my emotions were certainly out in full force, but nothing prepared me for this past week.

At Christmas, my husband arrived in Michigan where we will be having our little one.  Thank Goodness, because these five weeks without him were L.O.N.G.  As we made our way through the holidays and all the family time the imminent arrival of our little one became very real.

We needed to find a temporary place to live, a car to use (car seats require a car after all) and a doctor to deliver this little one.

This past week all of those things started to come together.  We were given a car to use, a gorgeous home to stay in. We had an appointment with a doctor that took a lot of time with me, who answered our questions and made us feel great about our choice to deliver here. I felt a wave of relief rush over me.  A few hours later Nyasha and I headed back to the hospital for a tour of the labor and delivery wards.

As we turned into the parking lot the realization hit me that in 1979 my mother was pregnant with me and in July she turned into the parking lot in this exact same hospital and gave birth to me.  The hospital has changed enormously over those 36 years and is almost unrecongnizable to the one she delivered in, but I won't deny that I felt some sort of connection to that-- and it has brought up a ton of emotions! 

Thoughts about a birth plan, who will be where and doing what and all the questions I have about what is about to happen in my world invariably lead to the thought that I would like to be having some conversations with my mom.

I would think that by now I am used to missing out on these things.  She died when I was 19 and I hadn't lived with her since I was 8...I have graduated several times without her, moved across country a couple of times and then around the world.  I have gotten married and now have almost made it through a pregnancy.  But when I walked around that hospital and thought about the fact that although I currently live around the world, that I will deliver in the same hospital she did, I wanted my mom. 

I want her to tell me what she felt like in those weeks and months and days before she met me for the first time.  What it was like when she held me on July 16, 1979.  I want to know what she felt, what she thought and more than anything I want her to tell me what she thinks about this little one that is to come.

Having a baby without a mama is no small thing. 

I have been blessed to have so many strong women in my life: my grandma, my aunts, the women who mentor me around the world--they mother me in different ways every day.  I also have a gracious, loving and prayerful mother-in-law.  I love them. I rely on them.  However there is only one woman who knew what it felt like to give birth to me and she is gone.  I cannot ask her, she cannot tell stories about my first moments and she will not be there when I give birth.

That brings on some BIG emotions, friends. 

There have been many days in my life when I have wanted my mom... but none as much as these. 

I am grateful that I believe that God uses all things for good and that He really does redeem even the most broken of situations.  I can't help but think that the fact that I am giving birth in the same hospital that my mother did so many years ago, is not an accident, but a chance for healing and redemption.

We are getting close to the time to meet our little one. Please keep us in your prayers!


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