Waiting

38 Weeks

Yesterday we had a doctor's appointment, and found out that our boy's "engaged."  This means he's moved down in my pelvis, and he's getting ready to come out!  I felt this drop last week, and with it, came more frequent mini contractions.

So now we are waiting and wondering. He could come tomorrow, he could come in two weeks. Though I am at 38 weeks and it's the right time for Baby to come, I've been asking him to stay in there a little longer, so we can enjoy this time of intense awareness - preparing for what is to come, and savoring the very different life we still have now, enjoying the moments of each day, whether it's a foot massage or a walk in the afternoon sun, basking in the silence of morning or having a quiet dinner at home, engaging in good conversation with friends and each other or getting up and slow dancing to music we've been reading/studying to.

Such a precious sort of mindfulness, this waiting.  Brings to mind another poem I taught while at DGS - Philip Larkin's "Days."

Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

This careful measurement of time... and yet just a few weeks ago days would pass me by in busyness and activity, and I hadn't the space in my head to count them, to be aware that I was living in them. Kind of like when I was engrossed in writing a paper, and stopped noticing Baby' kicks. But now the days are quiet, and time seems to expand like an open plain. And I track and mark each day, noticing changes in my body, watching for Baby's movements, wondering how many more days there are to this life we know.

How wonderful, then, to know that as I count the days (ours and Baby's), they have already been written in His book - were written when as yet there were none of them.

"...as your days, so shall your strength be." (Deuteronomy 33:25)