Me & My 'Pot Belly'

I have to say first off, I do love being pregnant. I’ve been SO lucky to have so far avoided “driving the porcelin bus” (as my family calls it) every morning, and have hopefully spared my husband my devil-like mood swings on most days. Yet, I am not so naïve to neglect to realize I’m only 11.5 weeks in and things have the potential and near-guarantee of getting increasingly miserable each week.

To "help" me on my journey, there are a billion pregnancy books out there. I’ve been sucked into the phenomena enough to buy one of them, thankfully I got it for $5 at the 2nd hand store. The book takes a humorous approach to the alien-like transition your body and mind will go through in the 10 months of pregnancy – yes, it actually is 10. I’m not sure if is successful at being humorous (maybe for certain topics) but it is successful at depressing me to the point of wanting a drink… and scaring the buhjesus out of me while they were at it. Obviously I shouldn’t have read ahead in the book to find out how it ends.

But my only initial complaint for the moment is what one of the pregnancy books affectionately referred to as my “pot belly”. Yes – that’s right. This whole scam of pregnant women being beautiful, glowing and voluptuous is not only a crock to those who are or have to live with a pregnant woman – but even the books themselves call B.S. on such a thing! Literally, at the stage I am at in my pregnancy, apparently it is common for women to have a pot belly. Gee - what an affectionate way to refer to the miracle growing inside of me. Despite the fact that every day about 2pm I try to sneak into the bathroom and take a nap on the toilet, and that my hormones have me raging and laughing within a matter of minutes, let’s go ahead and insult the newly-pregnant women and her body while we are at it!

Long story short, every day I get to wake up and drag this pot belly to the closet to find out what clothes I can squeeze into without looking like an overfed 2-year-old toddler. I have to say, this in-between stage between the suspicious whispers of “she has had a few too many doughnuts” or “is she pregnant” tend to do some damage to your self-esteem on top of everything else you are learning how to deal with.

Now with that said, in the end it is totally worth it. The few glimpses I’ve been blessed to have of this baby via ultrasound have brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my soul. I am anxious to move past the pot belly, and begin to see and feel the baby growing. I realize I’ll likely eat the words above 6 months from now, but right now I am looking forward to an awesome future of getting to know “baby K”.

Need More Patience

pa·tience (noun): good-natured tolerance of delay.

Patience is a virtue – one that I have not been blessed with. Fortunately, I can blame this one on my dad. As much as I love him, he is one of the most impatient people I know (other than me). Patience requires us to “wait calmly for something to happen without complaining.” Wow – sound virtually impossible to me.

But I acknowledge that patience is something I could use a little more of these days. Now don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining, but I am overly-anxious for things to happen. For instance, Eric and I are now living in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment that is the worst I’ve endured since college. Each day drags along while we “patiently” wait for our new house to be finished. We go out once each week to see what progress they have made, to which each time we go I’m disappointed that they didn’t get more done! Thank God I married a man who keeps me grounded and deals calmly with my impatience on a daily basis. Basically, the construction of our new house is progressing normally, but it can’t come soon enough for me!

Another aspect of life right now that requires patience is my pregnancy. I am 10 weeks, and being a first-time mom and someone who has waited years for this, I am impatient with the progress. I can’t wait to feel the baby move, I can’t wait to find out the sex and pick a name, I can’t wait to buy cute clothes and design a nursery…and I can’t wait to meet this beautiful miracle baby. Again, I make progress every day but it just can’t happen quickly enough for someone impatient like me. Despite my own desires, I realize that the greatest things in life are worth waiting for – and this is definitely no exception.

But to help counteract my impatience, I have begun to find something to look forward to each and every day. I hope it helps keep me more grounded and focused on the joy of the immediate future. I love my life and look forward to every single day that I get to share with my friends and family. I may struggle with being impatient with some of the more exciting and monumental things in my life, but every day has its own blessings, and I’m not too impatient to realize that.

Don't push Him out

I was sifting through old emails today and found this one, written by Ben Stein. I think it’s so insightful and important to keep in mind during the bustle of our daily lives.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (Regarding Hurricane Katrina.) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW." How simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing? Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

I hope all of us can begin to have conversations about God. I pray that we can invite him back into your lives if He has been missing, and glorify Him more often if He's been there all along.

And Away We Go…..

It’s amazing how God can sneak up on you and work miracles in your life. In a little over a week’s time, we were able to sell our old house and buy a new one, all to our surprise!

It really just goes to prove that we aren’t in control of anything….

Just a week prior, we were so upset and disheartened because our old realtors had fallen off the face of the earth and wouldn’t return our phone calls, and the house we had picked out as our “dream house” was suddenly been sold to someone else. Everything seemed to be falling apart and we were left wondering why. But by the grace of God, we received a phone call on a Monday night asking if someone could show our house. Ironically, it had already been pulled off of the website – so it's a wonder how they found us? They made an offer that night and we sold it. A few days later, after seeing many houses, but not finding any that were exactly what we wanted, we came across the perfect house. It is in Altoona and is still being built, but it will be brand new and ready for our family in August.

In usual fashion, if we put our pride (or whatever it is) aside and manage to let go of the wheel – God will take control of our lives. We may not always understand why things happen, and it may seem at the time like things are working against us. But as I’ve said before, I believe God always has a plan, we just don't always understand what it is. What may seem like sadness and disappointment now – may lead to something even better down the road. It is only when we can realize that it is up to Him, and not always try to control our own destiny, that it will happen.

I am so blessed, every day. Whether we would have stayed in our current house, or are able to move to a bigger one….I’m thankful for every joy God instills in my life. And the best part of this past week was not the joy of a new house, but of knowing that God was in control all along and had bigger and better plans for us. What an amazing feeling to know He is always with us. We just sometimes need reminding.