Babies babies babies....

That's the way my mind goes these days. :)

Or rather insert the name of my baby...no, I'm not telling! Someone was SHOCKED the other day when they discovered that Luke and I were the only ones who knew our baby's name. And that we hadn't told our parents yet. I think it is a really good idea to keep the name a secret for now. Besides, he'll be here any day!

Speaking of that, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and things are going swimmingly! Baby is growing nicely (don't know just how big, but I'd say he's roughly 6-61/2 lbs...if not more!) and my body is doing the right things to prep for labor and delivery of the little man. My doctor wrote something down for her assistant "Here's a new acronym for you to know. BBW." The assistant said "Ooo, a new one for my book! What does it mean?" My doctor responded "Bulging bag of waters." And then she told me they could rupture on their own at any minute.

Meet me, the walking time bomb!

Random people are talking to me everywhere I go. A baby belly is an automatic conversation starter that you can't stop! So people just jump right in and ask how far along you are, when you're due, is it a girl or boy, what's the name, tell you that you haven't dropped yet (when you have, thank you very much), or that you'll drop 2-3 times (what?), and all sorts of good stuff like that. Sometimes I'm in the mood for it and cheerfully chat about my baby, but lately I've been tired and don't want people commenting on my body and passing on wisdom to me when they really don't know me from Eve. It really is great to see how women ARE made for taking care of children, they naturally are drawn to babies from even before they are born. But surely Miss Manners would have something to say about what you do and don't say to a pregnant woman?

Luke has been faithfully attending childbirth classes with me! It's so great to have his support, and he's made it a priority for us to be at every class we can before the baby is born. Tonight our class got to ask a lot of questions from one of the local pediatricians. If we didn't already have a family doctor in mind and if it didn't make more sense to us to go with a family practitioner who could take care of our whole family (and who is a Christian and recommended by two families we trust) we'd go with this pediatrician. He seemed very well balanced, careful to not tell us what to do as parents (even though a few parents asked questions that are more personal preferences and not medical concerns). It was good to get a view at what the local pediatricians are like, as well as be able to ask a doctor specific questions for advice and what he'd do in thus and such a circumstance.

Something that has been very encouraging, even though I've been more and more uncomfortable over the past week is that bearing a child and then giving birth to him is all a part of being a woman in this world. :) That may sound cheesy, and it may sound morbid for me to go to Genesis 3:16 and find comfort, but I do honestly take comfort in the fact that the discomfort and pain of the whole process is God-ordained. Sure, it's a result of the fall and a curse, but it's the part of the curse that I have to bear. Luke bears the curse daily, toiling for the herb of the field and for our bread, and I will willingly bear my part, which is bringing forth children "in pain".

Many times I wish I didn't have to, especially since I've never delivered a baby before and doubt my own strength. But God works all evil for good. I know even now He is using this fear of the pain to show me that He will make me strong in my weakness. I know I can't do this on my own, but I trust Him fully that He will bring me through, that the Lord will protect both the baby and I during the whole thing, and that I can lean on Him completely, letting go of my own will, wishes, and strength. AND that the only way this will work is if I trust God's perfect will.

This makes me remember a song Mom used to sing to my siblings and me when we were little:

Trust and obey,

For there's no other way

To be happy in Jesus

but to trust and obey.

Blog CPR

I am trying to resuscitate the place, since so much has happened since I last posted those ridiculous pictures.

For one - I'm now married.

Two - We are expecting our first child, our son, June 14,

And three - we live roughly 9 hours away from BOTH sides of our families, and are the only ones that have moved further than 20 minutes...so we're rare. Or unique. Or rather, our experiences are quite different from that of our families and close friends, so this is one way I want to attempt to keep in touch.

A bonus is if I can get a following on here, I won't rely on Facebook to update family and friends on the latest and greatest news.

Teaser for next post: We attended our first childbirth class (and hopped in on the last night of a previous class, for reasons that will be explained in said-upcoming post) and we are more excited than ever for the grand entrance of our son! Details and stories forthcoming!

A Walk Down the Lane

This was the highlight of the walk: I stood on the culvert and looked stupid.

Actually, no, there were some very pretty trees. Faith took this one of a huge pine by standing almost directly underneath it. It doesn't look like there are needles, but it really did have plenty of needles on the ends of the branches, she just cropped them out in the pic.

A very pensive Faith. One can only really be truly pensive when one has a stick on one's chin.

Our lovely creek! Surrounded by the....dead....or....dying shrubs. Yeah. But it looks good, eh?

Our awesome shadow picture. Yes, we posed, and let me tell you, I'm lucky Faith hasn't put my shadow YMCA pictures up on her blog yet.

Surprised By Joy Quotes

I'm finally reading C.S. Lewis' Surprised By Joy all the way through for the first time. Granted, I'm only in the middle of the second chapter, but it's farther than where I was the last time I picked it up (first chapter). And I've got my American Scholar HB 2 pencil with me. Not as cool as Dixon Ticonderoga, but hey, it's got a lead and an eraser, along with the added bonus of that cheerful yellow colour.

And so, without further ado, I give you the words of Clive Staples Lewis.

"From a very early age I could draw movement - figures that looked as if they wre really running or fighting - and the perspective is good. But nowhere, either in my brother's work or my own, is there a single line drawn in obedience to an idea, however crude, of beauty. . . . Once in those very early days my brother brought into the nursery the lid of a biscuit tin which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs and flowers so as to make it a toy garden or a toy forest. That was the first beauty I ever knew. What the real garden had failed to do, the toy garden did."

"The charm of tradition and the verbal beauty of Bible and Prayer Book (all of them for me late and acquired tastes) were [my father's] natural delight, and it would have been hard to find an equally intelligent man who cared so little for metaphysics."

"As Owen Barfield once said to me, "The trouble about insects is that they are like French locomotives - they have all the works on the outside." The works - that is the trouble. Their angular limbs, their jerky movements, their dry, metallic noises, all suggest either machines that have come to life or life degenerating into mechanism. You may add that in the hive and the anthill we see fully realized the two things that some of us most dread for our own species - the dominace of the female and the dominace of the collective."

"My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them."

On praying for a miracle to save his dying mother: "I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply - well, go away."

At his school in Hertfordshire: "I was already doing Latin exercises (as taught by my mother) when I went there in 1908, and I was still doing Latin exercises when I left there in 1910; I had never got in sight of a Roman author."

I can feel the frustration of this last sentence coming through. My father has always said the point and purpose of going through Latin grammar (or the grammar of ANY language, in this case) is to read an author in his native tongue, to understand his words.

Down With Down Syndrome

A few weeks ago I read an article in the local paper about some family who had surgery done on their daughter who has Down Syndrome. The surgery was to keep her from growing bigger than her 9 year old size (I believe she is a few years older now), and it was successful. Her growth stunted, her parents now feel they can take care of her better without her gaining the natural weight and length of an adult. The hassle is cut in half.

Obviously, this article bothered me, and I didn't really know how to respond to it, even though I was immediately distrubed by the idea. Albert Mohler recently wrote an excellent post about aborting children with the possibility of having Down Syndrome.

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=856

It's definitely worth the read; it's short, concise, and to the point. I know lots of families with children afflicted with Down Syndrome, and I have seen how well they handle and train up their children. Sure it's difficult, but does that mean we should shrink from the challenge of having Down Syndrome people in America? What is so threatening about it, after all?