MollyMadonna.com

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New Perspective. (42)

I’m 34 weeks pregnant today and had my check-in appointment this afternoon. I was interested to know how baby is positioned, since I can never quite tell myself. Even on the ultrasound a few weeks ago, he or she switched directions a handful of times. It’s so hard for me to know until we’re close to our babies arriving. As hoped, this little one is in the right spot. The timing for checking is funny to me though–I’m feeling so much so differently as of today, and given the discomfort I was in yesterday and last night, I’m pretty sure our babe flipped head down sometime in the past 24 hours. Things definitely don’t feel the same anymore, and the kicks to my ribs and sides that I wondered about are now in gear. Isn’t this process of life growing just incredible? I never ceased to be amazed by it all!

Baby has been so active, which is always a great encouragement to me. I’d rather be jabbed and kicked all day than wonder when I’ll feel movement next. I’m trying to discern this little one’s personality, since I feel like I’ve gotten an idea about the others while they were all still growing in my belly. If anything, I’d have to say I feel like this babe is peaceful…his or her movements are generally fluid, and there’s just a whole lot of joy in this process. It’s hard, sure–a lot of days, actually. But my impression of baby is still that he or she is light, naturally sunny and nurturing a sweet disposition. It will be so fascinating to see if my inclinations are correct.

Six weeks until our due date and I don’t sense in my heart that we’ll wait any longer than that. Things are shifting. I’m in no rush, but I also trust my instincts and have more peace in the process when I lean into them. To have things look as expected in our appointment today was a gift, as all of our appointments have been. I just keep praying that God will orchestrate every detail and protect this little one with every bit of covering necessary. I’m trying to adjust more to our reality that baby will be here soon, and I think even the day I go into labor I’ll be surprised that the time has actually come. What is this life we get to live? And who is this precious little person we get to watch grow right before our eyes?

Baby is figuring out the world upside down now, and maybe I can relate a little. I don’t feel upside down, but I do feel like there’s new perspective waiting for me every day as I learn to mother this sweet little one to the best of my ability. It’s a new adventure every 24 hours. What a beautiful thing!

MM

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Celebrating Freedom. (47)

It’s the Fourth of July and fireworks have been going off outside for the better part of two hours now. I love fireworks, and I also always think about how many veterans might be struggling tonight after serving and fighting for the freedom the rest of us are celebrating. It’s a strange and hard thing, the way freedom here cost so much at its inception and how it continues to cost more and more today.

I love seeing everyone’s patriotism on a day like today–so much red, white and blue in pictures everywhere, picnics and parties with family and friends and every possible and celebratory dessert creation you can imagine. The way we honor this holiday as a nation feels fully American and really wholesome, which is probably my favorite part about it. Somehow we do feel a bit more united on the 4th, whether or not the headlines tell a different story tomorrow or the next day or the next.

We’ve all be through such a tumultuous year and a half, and from so many different angles. Political unrest, politics in general, pandemic fears and realities, isolation, trauma for reasons not even related to a global pandemic but rather on top of it, relational challenges, racial tensions, job insecurities, remote learning and working and all the things, major needs for adaptation, completely new territory on a global scale…all of this taking its emotional, mental, physical, spiritual toll on every one of us, no matter how uniquely. To celebrate Independence Day today looks so much like it did before last year’s more subdued, more isolated version, but it feels different to me. It feels weightier. The price tag on freedom has changed, and so have we.

I don’t really want to get super philosophical here or anything wild at 11pm on a holiday, but I do just feel like sharing that this year’s 4th stirs up new things in me. I am amazed at how normal things feel (dare I say, are?) and yet how much I want to acknowledge the treacherous path we’ve all been on to get here. I think a lot of our freedoms were challenged this past year+, and I still think they’re being challenged today. My personal quest for understanding and truth have ebbed and flowed in the midst of it all–sometimes my personality has driven me to pursue information to a fault, and more often than not (and especially as time has gone on), I’ve needed to hang my hat on what my belief in Christ leads me to recognize as Truth alone. I’ve needed to block out the droning on of information and noise from every side, instead pressing in to the ONE place I can really count on to be life-giving and hopeful and truly freeing.

Freedom looks different to me this holiday because I think we’re all a little more seasoned; perhaps a little more skeptical or frustrated or curious about what’s true and what’s been true and whatever comes next. I’m still so grateful to live where we live and to belong to a nation that has pursued freedom creatively and innovatively for as long as it’s been a nation. And like many (or most?), I’m still grappling with the cost of freedom and wondering about the future of freedom, which seems to change more readily these days than any of us might like to admit. It’s good to be here, planted and hopeful for the future, and it’s also good to come to the end of this celebratory day acknowledging where our true freedom originates. I can picnic, set off fireworks and dress in red, white and blue to authentically represent my patriotism, and at the same time, I’m leaning hard on God for His guidance for the future of our nation and His protections over the freedoms we’ve come to know and enjoy simply by living here.

Here’s to true freedom–the kind that can never be take away, and to our day to day freedoms that have been hard fought and hard earned. May we never take them for granted!

MM

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Condensed Nesting. (49)

A few weeks ago, someone asked me if we were going to have a doula for this upcoming birth. As a doula myself, that surely seems like a natural conclusion to draw. We’ve had a doula twice, and the third time were planning to have a doula until circumstances shifted six weeks or so before baby was due. At that time, we were most comfortable with our doula from our previous births, and since it was relatively close to my due date, we opted not to try to replace her with someone less familiar. We certainly missed having her, but as it was our third labor and delivery, we didn’t feel the need to rush into something different. This time though, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to consider and interview other possible doulas but it never really crossed my mind. I’m sure there are a few factors playing into this, not the least of which are the hospital restrictions that have been in place over the past year plus, and my being unsure whether an extra support person would be allowed in the room. That said, I think the real reason I didn’t consider a doula all this time is because I hadn’t let my heart go that far down the road. I wanted to, sure, but everything felt so tenuous for so long…it must have been subconscious self preservation not to let my mind commit to the day we’ll welcome this baby here.

Now we’re seven weeks away from my due date, and while I still have to talk myself away from challenging thoughts and hanging my hat on, “Nothing is guaranteed,” I also recognize that it’s important to prepare for this little one to arrive. It’s even more important that I lean into that truth–this little baby is going to arrive. With that in mind, I’m suddenly in go mode even more than I’ve felt before. I want things in their place now…not later. I want to know that there’s a cozy spot for the baby to sleep, clean baby clothes in drawers, maybe some sweet and intentional art hanging on the nursery walls. We had the “nursery” painted months ago, but our boys are still sharing that same room at the moment. It’s a small detail, but it might be easier to set up a crib in there if they were in their new room instead.

I’m trying to stay lighthearted about all of this, but there’s so much to it and I know I’m also processing a lot. I have a vision for the baby’s room, but not all of the elements to make that vision a reality just yet. I feel like I’m suddenly rushing around for things I probably could have sorted out sooner had I not been quite as stifled in my belief that this was all really happening. God has had my heart, mind, body and spirit on a journey of learning to trust and surrender over and over. I’m so grateful, and I’m also still growing.

In a way, this process and the timing of it is pretty wonderful. Getting things ready for baby to arrive is a helpful and soothing way for me to prepare and tangibly feel the excitement of it all. Creating a space that will be intentional and calm and lovely, well…that’s my ambition, and hopefully, what we end up with when all is said and done, too.

I know that we could welcome baby tomorrow, and that he or she would be just fine without the crib up or a designated room to call their own. But creating the baby’s space has historically been a healthy, creative, intentional process for me, and this time it feels no different. Time will tell if I can have certain “staple” items checked off of the list in the weeks we have left, but I’m certainly going to try. Creating a place for our honeybee is an honor, and it will be far more so when we can use the space for its purposes and discover more of who this little one is going to be.

I can’t wait, but I can. It’s a good feeling, to be right here in the midst of both being true.

MM

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Livin’ on a Prayer. (50)

If I haven’t titled post #50 in a 100 day countdown, “Livin’ on a Prayer” before now, I’m really not sure why. That seems like low hanging fruit, right? It’s so accurate for where things are right now on multiple levels. I don’t know for fact that I’m halfway through the last 100 days to baby, but if I were a betting pregnant woman…

I decided this week that I’m reclaiming summer after a slow start out the gate for our crew. Today is July 1st (would be my grandparents 71st anniversary, today, FWIW), and the start of July plus 50 or so days to baby feels like the right time to be celebratory and intentional and to put a stake in the ground. Summer, commence! I want to do all of the summertime things we can possibly enjoy without driving ourselves to the brink of exhaustion or turning it into a to-do list instead of a fun pursuit.

This morning, we got up and took ourselves to the beach about a half hour away. I knew a rocky beach would add extra entertainment vs. the sandy beaches we usually frequent, and my instinct proved profitable. Between the gazillion rocks to stack, carry, build with, move, and collect, the awesome tide pools left by days of rain and water filling in from the lake, and the family of similarly-aged kiddos who built dams and channel systems with our crew, we had a solid two hours of whine-free playtime in my happiest place. It was windy, but the sun was shining and the sky was blue, I managed to read a few chapters of a fiction book due back soon to the library, and it FELT LIKE SUMMER, Amen! We all needed it. We’ll need more of it. And we’re going after it. 50 days or so to live life to the full with our three while this baby swims around tucked inside…it’ll be balm to all of our souls if we can sprinkle these kinds of memories throughout the next number of weeks. You can bet we’ll try!

If I didn’t feel so compelled to make it count, I know we could spend the entire summer this way: sleep-in mornings for the kids, stacks of books piling up in the living room–blankets and pillows and cozy straight on through lunchtime, and me wandering around the house trying to make progress on a million little things I could just go crazy over until it’s too late to tackle any of them any more. The sun would shine and the days would be the temperature we all dream about the whole rest of the year, and we’d miss it all as it went by outside the front door. I’m all about some cozy, sleep-in mornings in summertime, but the reward is pretty great for pursuing the mini-adventure, too. This week, I’m so grateful for three days so far of getting up and out and onto something a bit distanced from home. We’ve all benefitted from the change of scenery and the re-discovery that there’s a world out there waiting for us to soak it in. And while I’m experiencing some kind of second wind wave of energy this pregnancy that I didn’t really expect would come, you can bet I want to capitalize on the gift that it is to be out living life with our kiddos. Grace, really. It’s all grace. And I’m beyond thankful for it and feeling healthier because of it.

Here’s to “half way there” and all of the prayers it takes to keep moving forward. The joy of the Lord really is our strength!

MM

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Growth Days. (51)

There are days when I feel I’ve grown more than others, and today was one of those days. I don’t mean that my belly feels bigger, but that a number of things happened today from a spiritual/mental/emotional standpoint that feel like good strides. I always love this, and I try to fully embrace it, because it’s not an every day thing and not something I want to miss noticing. It’s more an acknowledgement of my gratitude for it that I want to articulate…I just feel better when I’m making progress on the things that matter, and I recognize that this isn’t of my own doing, but rather something that requires my participation. We have to be willing to accept it in order to grow in certain areas, right?

When I think about my garden plot in life, I want to till rich soil that’s good for planting. I want to clear out weeds and be a hospitable environment for seeds to take root. I want to retain moisture and be open to sunshine and to cultivate progress that bears fruit. We know that this is daily work, and sometimes I get out to tend the garden more responsibly, while other days I might ignore it or simply not find time to address it in the midst of life’s details. That said, I never want to abandon the work that’s already done. Nurturing what’s growing really matters to me–in every area of life.

Today, I had an hour to spend with someone in self-reflection. It was cathartic and clarifying and helpful. Later, I sat with another friend just sharing about life and catching up on things, which is always good for reviewing what’s happening around me (and how I’m feeling about it). I had a good bit of time in the car and plugged into a podcast that built on things I’d shared with others earlier in the day. This felt awfully intentional and timely on God’s part, and it was also kind. I needed some clarity on a few things, and the events of the day allowed room for processing and leaning into where He has me right now. It was the encouraging space I needed after a day of soul searching and getting really real with myself about some feelings yesterday. I feel like it all just piggy backs in a way that helps me to see God’s hand in growing and stretching me right now. I am so grateful for that grace. He doesn’t have to show me, but in answered prayers, He demonstrates His attention to detail and also His knowing how much those details matter to me.

I don’t know what the day holds tomorrow. It doesn’t necessarily matter. I’d love for it to be a great and encouraging day, and I’d love the chance to keep building on what God did in my heart today. I know I’m not promised that. But I’m hopeful that this self-reflecting can keep coming. In a space when I feel so attuned to the world around me, I want to be soaking up all of the helpful parts and using them to be the fullest and most authentic version of myself that I can. I need God’s help with that, and He has already given the go-ahead on pursuing it, so I’m feeling ready to dig in.

Tomorrow is the halfway point through this exercise of documenting the last 100-ish days of baby’s journey here. I can hardly believe it, and you’d better believe I want to savor these and the remainder for all they’re worth. There’s too much good in the process to fall asleep on it in this season. Would you please continue to pray that I remain open and available to all God wants to do through this growing phase? And that He would continue to cover and keep this baby safe and well, and mama alongside? In the pursuit of what is good, and in the celebration of life, I know the the enemy wouldn’t have things this way. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies is needed and invited here, so that God has room to do all that He’ll do.

Humbled and grateful, daily.

MM