I’m shaking my head a little in disbelief tonight. Today marks 27 weeks pregnant and the beginning of my third trimester. While I definitely feel 27 weeks pregnant (maybe more?), the mental shift for me in knowing we’ve reached the third trimester is just huge. I needed this milestone today.

The weather has been amazingly summer-y and I love it in every way. I’ll admit though, if the heat of the past two days has been foretelling of the next few months, I’m going to default to air conditioning and popsicles, smoothies and shade far more from now until August than I usually do. I might also need to embrace extra naps, extra limitations, less speed–none of which I’m very good at doing. It’s no wonder that the word I sensed God showing me for 2021 is STILL.

Still is a challenge for me. I wish it weren’t. Sometimes it’s to my benefit that I like to go, go, go, but probably not in my third trimester with three active kiddos and a busy family schedule. My slower speed is impacting everyone at home already…”I’m sorry, honey. Mom just can’t do that right now,” and “I wish I could, sweetie, but I just need to rest,” are becoming hallmark phrases of this season. Coupled with my hyperactive nesting ambitions right now, the result is generally an Ennegram 1 level of frustration that I am definitely being called to check. I know that God is pressing me in this way in love, desiring for me to know more of a reliance on Him and still less and less dependence on my own strength. Somehow this is a tutorial that continues to need review in my life.

In all aspects of stretching that are happening right now: the physical stretching of every bit of my mid-section, the spiritual stretching of my ability to be still and know, the emotional stretching of trusting daily that our baby is growing and well, and the mental stretching of embracing this time for all of its beauty when our default as humans is to grumble…each area of my life is God doing His work in His timing. I do feel so humbled to be on this journey, I really do.

So, third trimester, and it feels amazing to be able to say that, as much as it also feels bittersweet. I can’t wait to tangibly hold this baby, but I also want to soak up every bit of this time without wishing any ounce of it away. I have loved being pregnant with each of our babies. And since I was arriving at a place of being resigned that my last pregnancy had likely come and gone, this experience feels all the more rich and special and grace-filled than I could have even imagined. It’s all bonus and extra and wonder and surprise, even on the hard or hot or exceptionally stretching days. They say your body is forever altered by every life you carry, and I couldn’t possibly refute it. This baby, this grace–it is changing me every day, and I’ll surely not be the same.

Humbled is an understatement…

MM