wow. so i guess i'm preggo.

aly is crying here at my knees.  she's been crying all evening actually.  i guess she didn't nap well or something because every little event tonight has thrown her into a dramatic fit of tears.  i usually don't mind the tears--it's going to be part of raising this little girl, of that i am sure.  but these are dinosaur tears and they keep coming.  i want to keep her up for another half hour or so, so her daddy can see her before she goes to bed.

nick was moved to second shift for a few months to train some new staffers there.  he is great at what he does and we've chosen to view this appointment as evidence of his good work and the foundation for future advancement.  he'll be home a little after eight tonight but usually he arrives home after midnight.  you need to understand that I have an umbilical to my husband.  i am attached to him completely.  there was a time in our marriage that i craved divorce from him, but now this season of being apart so much is very painful.  we don't dwell on it.  we are very strong--we have endured a lot.  but still.  my heart, there is a hole.

so many times a week i pull single-mom duty.  i love being a mama.  i love being aly's mama.  she's a very good girl.

but i'm also roughly eight weeks pregnant.
and i need to say this:
i didn't really want to be.

i feel like i have to whisper those words because i have easily a dozen friends who would cut off their right arm to conceive and carry a child.  while i have never experienced that, i ache for them with a depth that is really hard to express.  i often feel guilty about my successful fertility.  i avoid them sometimes because i feel like i should have a bag of shame over my head for daring to appear in public with a physical example (aly or the swollen belly) of what they are so hungry for.  it's not fair.  it doesn't feel fair.

and i know that God, in His perfection, is on a very specific journey with each of these women, my friends.  i know He's working a complete work in them.  i think of "consider it pure joy when you experience trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance..."  in my opinion, there is no kind of perseverance more developed than a woman who takes her basal every morning before she even moves.  that's a whole new kind of struggle.

so i feel this overwhelming guilt that i should be really excited to be pregnant again
if only because so many of my friends wish to be.

but the truth is that this baby, as healthy and growing as he is (i really think it's a boy), is an enormous stretch for me.  probably the biggest stretch of my life, and that's saying something.  i have a one-year-old child (who, at this moment, is still crying, darn it!...ok, she's soothed for the moment...) and she's walking and busy and hungry and thirsty and dirty and many many times i'm largely responsible for her.  these are duties i relished before.  but now i'm nauseous and tired.  i need to cook for her, but everything in my fridge makes me sick to think about.  there's a beautiful package of spinach in my fridge and it's going to spoil because i can't stand the idea of opening it.  blech, see, I just dry heaved.

i really was thinking of working on a second pregnancy later this year.  but not yet.  not a baby that's due at the exact wrong time of the year.  Nov?  i'll be lucky if a get a day off to give birth.  that's exaggerative but makes my point.  i have actually had whole trains of thought that pray that i don't have an episiotomy so i can be on my feet faster.  in some ways, i'm angry because i'll have this precious new person and i'm scared that i won't even be able to enjoy those first few weeks.  i'll be like the tribal woman who squats in the rice field, gives birth, straps the baby on her back and keeps working.  it's not my boss that would require this--it's my own darned sense of loyalty and responsibility that burdens me. thoughts like these have poisoned what should be a blessing to me.

i know God must be doing a brand new thing because this current set of circumstances is impossible by human standards.  especially for a woman.  i can't IMAGINE that God would put me intentionally into a scenario that regardless of how it plays out, i am submerged in guilt for most of the Christmas season.  I could cry just thinking about the seeming impossibility.

so there it is.  i am pregnant.  but it wasn't my plan.  while I haven't experienced infertility, i imagine that it's not so much the baby that challenges our faith---i think its the emotions of disappointment in timing and our failed plans that create a crisis of faith. 

while these are my feelings, they are not my reality.  i know my Father--I trust Him.  He is GOOD.  He loves me and Nick and Aly and this new baby so so much.  I am safe with him.  Me and my heart are safe with Him.  

so i keep my mind on it.  i repeat it to myself.  over and over and over.  my heart is so shaky still that i haven't spent time in prayer on this yet.  not officially.  perhaps i am in prayer all of the time.  i am in a whole different brand of labor.  i am not sure of myself, but i am SURE of my Father.  He's working something out.

all i gotta do is work on me.  i believe.  i have been positioned (again) in the unknown...a place where faith is not just a suggested tool--but the only hope.