39 Weeks

Dear baby,

39 weeks and a day. 

There's nothing really to make me think I will be holding you this week, even though your sisters did make their appearance by this point.

It's strange, this holiday week.  While everyone around me is entering a season where life gets busier - calendars fill up, travel plans are made, lists grow longer and more urgent - here we are, just waiting.  I feel a little frozen in my own bubble of time. 

All of our prep work is done, our calendar has been cleared, we've settled into home, into the four of us, ready...just waiting for you.

There is certainly part of me that wants to hurry up and meet you.  To get to know you and for you to get to know me, your papa, your sisters.  To introduce you to all the amazing people in our life.  But my true self knows, I know not to wish these last womb days away.  These are sacred days and what I do with them will be a part of your story.

So I will settle in to the waiting, not with anxiousness and hurry, but with peace and assurance that your arrival is already known and has been planned by the One who created you.  My days will be filled with our ordinary routine, with pockets of quiet and reflection and waiting.


I am so incredibly thankful for you.

Love,
Mama

35 Weeks

Dear baby,

My goodness.  I can't even believe we're 35 weeks today.

You are certainly growing and I want you to take these last weeks to just continue to fatten up and keep putting on that weight.

I also wanted to mention something you might notice one day.

There has been less documenting, less belly pictures, less tracking this go around. 

But do not ever interpret that to mean less anticipation, less excitement, less joy, less gratitude.  Because there has been more of those feelings than any other time in my life!

I am just so incredibly excited to meet you, still so incredibly in awe of this process, and so incredibly thankful to be able to experience this.  To experience you growing inside of me and preparing for your birth.

You are so loved.

Love,
Mama

30 Weeks

Dear baby,

I meant to write at 28 weeks, our start of the 3rd trimester.  Then I was going to try again at 29 weeks.

Well, here we are at 30 weeks and 2 days. 

Sitting down and recording in this space is just not as easy as it used to be.  But this journey, your journey, continues to be etched deep in my heart and my thoughts have been scribbled down in open journals around the house.  I want you to know that your continued growth and upcoming arrival has been and is being cherished, celebrated, anticipated.

I can not stop smiling every time I think of you and feel you move.  A rush of giddy excitement consumes me at the thought of meeting you and seeing your face for the first time.  This third time around I truly know how silly it is to waste thoughts and energy on worries and questions of how I'll manage and how hard will it be.  I just know it works out.  What I focus on, what I know to be true, is the total mind-blowing, life changing impact of meeting and getting to know a new little soul.  That's what I am anticipating.  Those are the thoughts I enjoy being consumed with. 

A few days ago Lucy had her hands on my belly, she was trying to guess what part of your body she was feeling.  She looked up smiling at me and said, 'Mama, do you know how excited I am for the baby to get here?  I think I am more excited then God is!'  That's quite a lot of excitement!

I saw our midwife this morning.  She said you feel long and limb-y.  On track with being a good healthy size baby, just like your sisters.  Keep growing sweet baby. 

On a walk with your sisters to celebrate the Autumn equinox, we saw ombre trees on their way to full Fall glory, we were intoxicated by the sweet smell of the full bloom tea olives that your Papa planted around the house the year we married, the girls started a box of collected acorns, sticks, rocks, leaves, all for you...and I thought of you, prayed for you, and continue to wait for you.


Love,
Mama

25 Weeks

Dear baby,

We are moving right along.  You are quite literally moving along, all the time!  I might actually prod you at times to get you dancing some more.  I hope you don't mind, it's just one of my favorite feelings in the world.  You get so many kisses and squeezes and 'I-love-you's from your sisters, and I am so happy that you can now hear their precious voices. 

This week we scheduled the rest of our midwife appointments and there were fewer then I assumed there would be, 3 1/2 months is just not that long.  That thought makes me smile.

Isaiah 26:3 has always been one of my favorite Bible verses.  "You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you."  I have focused on that verse during struggles, during new transitions, and during the labor of both your sisters.  But over the last year the Lord has been slowly and gently reminding me that's not a promise just for tough times, he wants me to daily walk in that peace.  He wants me to live there.  Sweet baby, it's transforming.  To truly understand that the one living God, the Creator, the one creating you now, rests in me and He just wants me to rest in Him.  Honestly it's becoming impossible to look ahead or make decisions with any worry or anxiety when I constantly hear Him whispering to me, "I've got you."

So this waiting has been filled with so much peace.  Something I am truly thankful for.  It leaves me just looking forward to the change of seasons, to all the holidays, to your birth.  It's peace that makes me smile at the thought of becoming a mother to three young children.  Peace that just doesn't leave room for fear of not being enough.  So yes, I choose to believe that promise. 

Love,
Mama

20 Weeks

Dear baby,

I had my second midwife appointment last week.  With the knowledge that only comes from decades of feeling the bellies of pregnant women, she pressed on my stomach and confirmed that your position and size is just what it should be.  Then with your sisters on either side of me, we waited quietly while she moved the fetoscope around in search of your heartbeat.  She found it.  You didn't quite hold still long enough for a count, but you did end with a good kick to the scope.  It was a sweet time with good conversation.  These visits are just as much about preparing your sisters for your birth and I am so thankful they get to be a part of all of it and add their questions and wonder to the whole process.

Right now we are in Florida visiting your Uncle Tyler, Aunt Amanda, and baby Nate.  Baby Nate...a title that he will soon be passing on to you as he turns one this October and your arrival will be the following month.  While here, we have listened to live music along the river at an outdoor market, water-colored sitting in the garden of a local museum, visited the animals in the zoo, and of course dug in the sand and dipped our toes in the sea.  It's been such a sweet visit, one I look forward to you being a part of as well.

You are growing...keep on little one, keep on.

Love,
Mama

18 Weeks

Dear baby,

2 days ago we hit 18 weeks, and you had a bit of a growth spurt.  I can always tell when the growth has been significant because your Papa will come home from work, grin and say ‘Whoa!  Hello there baby.’ and rub my belly.

I’ve been trying hard lately to stick to a better bedtime for me so that I can enjoy feeling good by being rested.  But your Papa is a night owl and staying up talking and vegging out with him has been just too tempting lately.  But the good news?  For the last 4 or 5 nights I’ve been feeling you move.  Not the kicks and punches yet, but those first early flutters that feel like a more subtle version of what happens in your belly when you drive over steep hills.  Something I might not even recognize as you if this wasn’t my third time around.  And this only happens around 11:00 or 11:30 at night.  I’m grateful for these moments, and that I’m awake to feel them.

So here’s to being about the size of a bell pepper and having the ability to flex your arms and legs.

 

Love,
Mama

 

16 Weeks

Dear Baby,

I'm pretty excited to be writing these letters again, to be writing a letter to you.

We are already 2 weeks in to 2nd trimester and I am thankful for this for so many reasons.  The last few months have already brought so much surrender.  Choosing faith over fear.  Resting in the truth that my womb and your tiny little body, while a mystery to me, is no mystery to God.  That truth has brought peace.  And even when it's been a struggle, I'm thankful for the vulnerability that comes from trusting the Creator and not simply information.

I look forward to sharing with you the stories of this last year and the journey leading up to now and beyond.  Stories of some heartbreak and grief and how my Savior walked through it all beside me, speaking to me words of truth and comfort.

I'm so thankful for the sweet gift you are.

Love,
Mama