Not just a river in Egypt

This is me 19 weeks pregnant. I took this photo today.

Drove into work yesterday and was thinking about flashmobs. If I have one thing on my bucket list, it's to be in one. Then I started sobbing. Flashmobs just seemed so unbelievably sweet and tender that I started to cry. Tears flow pretty easily these days over the simpliest things. They are happy, sweet tears :)

I've had to buy a bigger set of clothes. I broke down and bought maternity pants.

I'm starting to feel like a human being. The constant exhaustion and nausea has faded and I've started painting my toes again. Next I'll try putting on make up on a regular basis. I'm eating more, food has started to taste less like dish soap and more like food!

But the biggest change I've noticed, is that I look like that up there. That really is me in the photo above. I still can't wrap my head around it. At night, I stare at myself in a full length mirror. Absolutely gobsmacked by purple stretch marks, blue veins and fleshy roundness.

It blows my mind. How did this happen?

I believe I've been in denial.

Even when the doctor asked me if I felt the baby move, I didn't know. Was the fluttering real? Was the tiny pushes from tiny arms real? I told him I just didn't know.

I do now though.

I feel the little bean moving around in there. It's never the same, not like other belly sensations which have a rythm and predictability. The baby moves at different times and in different ways. I get greedy about it. Pushing on my roundness. Trying to get her to react. She doesn't though. Stinker!

I can say I'm so, so thankful for this child. So thankful for this blessing. So thankful for all that I've been given.

And just like the Lord above, we love our children even before he is born. The love is unbelieveable now. I feel absolutely flooded with it.

So thankful.

Amen.