Okay, so life has been a little out-of-control busy for us for the last several months, so unfortunately the blog had to take a back burner. I'm going to try to be more diligent now...
The exciting news in our lives right now is the much-anticipated and imminent birth of our third baby! He is due immediately, and has been teasing us for weeks with the anticipation of an earlier arrival, and yet is still holding on tight to his comfortable little world. In general, we are content to wait until he's ready; we certainly don't wish to force away from him his last few precious days in my womb, to which he can never return. However, as I mentioned, he's also been teasing us for this whole month with various signs of impending labor, then retracting as if nothing happened. The continued anticlimactic anticipation has been leaving us emotionally weary and confused, not to mention extra ready for him to come NOW! We are just so excited to meet this little guy!
The other challenge I am having is the daily face-off with my nesting instinct. Over the last several weeks, we've been crazy trying to get everything ready for baby: there were projects to accomplish, rooms to paint, baby gear to clean, and birth supplies to prepare, not to mention the usual housecleaning and home maintenance. And nesting sometimes means needing things done that seem unnecessary to others! For about two weeks we've had everything in satisfactory condition--by no means have we accomplished everything we would like, but at least the necessary things--and have been focusing on maintaining. Daily we endeavor to keep our home and ourselves in optimal condition for the onset of labor, assuming it could happen at any moment. We feel it is especially important since we are having a home birth and will be welcoming various different people into our home for assistance during the birth.
Our home needs to be clean. Our bodies need to be rested. Our supplies and preparations need to be ready. This sort of maintaining is surprisingly draining (perhaps mostly mentally) and takes a great amount of effort! To continually be ready takes a plan, great focus, dedication, consistency, and patience. It takes effort to refuel dashed excitements. And it takes the strength to overcome discouraging thoughts when your readiness is not rewarded.
This focus on being continually ready has been making me think quite a bit about Matthew 25 and the Parable of the Ten Virgins, where Jesus exhorts us to "keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour" (Matt. 25:13). Just like this baby, we know Jesus' coming is imminent, but we don't know when. We must keep ourselves continually ready by developing a plan, focus, dedication, consistency, and patience, and the strength to overcome discouragement. It's hard. It's really hard. But we know that soon our diligence will be rewarded!
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