9 Months.

It’s really funny how all your life through media and family and every other source you hear that pregnancy is a 9-month event. But only when you’re pregnant do you get corrected to understand that it’s anywhere from that to a 10 1/2 month event.  42 weeks is an all the way full term baby.  And 38 weeks is the minimum for being considered a non-premie.    But all through life – you hear “9 months”.  Here I am at that point.

This entire experience has been so humbling.  I’m surprised and honored to have made it this far when there were so many things telling me that it wouldn’t happen.   But against all the odds – here I stand.  I keep saying it … it’s my way of thanking God.  All my life I’ve believed that fear and faith can’t inhabit the same body and so I would ultimately cho0se Faith and wait on the Lord.  I can’t say that He’s ever let me down.  He’s NEVER given me more than I could handle.  And if that was the case, he surrounded me with people to prop me up till I could get it together.  I have no reason to doubt or question him now.  And yet the fear of what’s to come in a few weeks has begun to envelope my mind.  The “What-Ifs” have converged to make me doubt all that I thought I knew.  Potentially by next week… my whole life will have changed in a way that I can NEVER come back from.  NO matter what happens – I will have gestated and birthed a child of my own…  I will be a Mother.  Blessed Vessel to deliver a new life into the world.  This is the change life SHOULD take.  What I’d been waiting for  – for what seems to be a life time, considering in my 16 year old life plan, this was supposed to take place when I was 22… I only missed the mark by 14 years.  What else would I be doing with my life at this point if I wasn’t pregnant?  No… this is where I should be.

So why am I so scared?  I’ll be in charge of a whole other human life.  For her care, nurturing, cleaning, loving, teaching, handling, well being, sense of self, family and purpose.  What if I screw it all up?  I wish my mom was here to ask questions.  She did SO MUCH with so little.   In my humble opinion, she did an amazing job and I’d love to pick her brain about the minutiae now – how to stop a colicky baby from crying;  what are some old school Haitian remedies for diaper rash;  how to hold the baby so that she doesn’t spit up;   what secrets are there to avoid blowouts…. (even though, I remember her telling me the story of her first blow out experience with Dominic.  She thought the poor boy exploded in his crib over night…. and the story of how she cried on the train on her way back to work because she didn’t want to leave her newborn baby son.)

So maybe even the best of moms… don’t always know what to do.  But they always end up doing what they feel is best.

I worry that she won’t like me… or not latch on, or have some kind of developmental issue – all that could have been avoided if I did something different.

But this is the one time in my life where everything I did got me to 9 months.

I emptied my head of the “What Ifs” to Earl last night and he fired back with a few of his.  As confident and as steadfast as he’s been, he listed them without hesitation.  And I looked at him and thought… as long as we’re both in this together, I guess it can’t be so bad… or so frightening that we can’t lean on each other to figure it out.  Jenny assured us that between her and Mo and my MIL and countless sisters… there’s no way for me to feel that I don’t have a support system.  Now I just have to trust what I’ve always trusted.

Peace out, Fear.

If there was no room for you in this body because Faith was already there… there’s even LESS space now that I’ve made room for my baby too.  I’m sure you’ll peek your head up again soon, but you’re never ever welcome and I will NOT make a way for you.

*