It's official!!!

Woah....posting twice in one week. This is wierd! Anyways...

It's absolutely official. We are physically ready for BABY! As in, we have the "supplies needed to support a newborn within our apartment walls."  It doesn't look like anything I imagined, but it works. There is a place for baby to sleep, there is a place to store 4, maybe 5 outfits (better be a boy!), and there is a cheap/crappy diaper organizer thingy hanging on the wall. Yep, it's our 4th child. I can't help but laugh when I think back to the room we had created for our FIRST born! My how things have changed...

Working on transparency, I must admit that I still struggle with the arrival of this baby mentally. I can not say that I am ready. I have been on my knees many times in the past few weeks asking for God to change my heart. I have moments throughout the day when I honestly forget I am pregnant, and if you could see a picture of me right now, that would probably blow your mind! I have tried so many things to connect with this SURPRISE...purposefully buying maternity clothes that say things like "Baby", making a shirt that says "Due in June" (not so much for other people, but really a reminder for myself), buying things the baby will need, researching names, setting up the room, working on a birth plan. But something is still missing. And it's a very unsettling feeling to know that. My sweet husband has even gone as far as buying me "Countdown Gifts", which he gives me each Friday when I get one week closer to the due date. It's not working, but don't tell him that! I LOVE the gifts!!

So there it is...honest and raw. I am 3cm dialated, 50% efaced. There is a baby coming at any moment. And I'm scared. Will I love this baby once I am holding it in my arms? Am I not allowing myself to connect with this blessing just because I didn't ask for it? Did the birthing experience with Graham screw me up forever? Or is God just teaching me to be patient, forcing me to rely on Him and His plan...and to trust that I will soon have an answer to all of this.

James 1:2-4 (The Message)

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.