Only One

This is me 38 weeks pregnant with caleb. I feel like i look this way right now, but i'd need outside verification for authenticity. We are our own worst critics...are we not?

let me give you a preface to what you are about to read. These thoughts originated sunday. it was a day of children--i teach sunbeams (~10 kids, 3 yrs old) and the 4-5 yr olds. My partner and i are filling in for the sunbeams. Caleb is 2 1/2, rambunctious and adorable. I am 33 weeks pregnant. These facts do not add up to a particularly spiritual sunday.

I taught a lesson about how our bodies are special and essential to our progression in this life. Last night as i sat in my bath, staring at my bulging belly watching it shift and move around from colton doing whatever it is babies do in-utero i had a thought:
Only One Body
we only get one body...and i am making coltons, well my body is making it.
Pregnancy is Sacred!
Sure, its difficult! It hurts in weird ways. My sides frequently feel like they might split open, i have contractions that take my breath away (literally), my feet hurt-ache and the tingling sensation in my hands from swelling sorta freaks me out.

Despite all this, how many times do we give life...like this? All we, as women, ever discuss is the negative and discomforts and difficulty-perhaps because they are so all-consuming and seemingly everlasting...

but

it is special. Once-in-a-lifetime (or however many kids you have) special. I mean look at your kids. Watch them breathe--you did that. You, me, our mothers...we made that. Sure, it isn't a conscious making, but the two years of giving up ourselves to share our bodies with a beautiful and miraculous little parasite (think science people!)...we are amazing. Our bodies are amazing. How anyone can think we evolved from an ameoba clearly has no sense of the wonder in the mirror.

1 corinthians 3:16
Know ye not that ye are the ^atemple of God, and that the ^bSpirit of God dwelleth ^cin you?

I struggle to breathe. I can't be active because i get contractions so bad. My legs look like cottage cheese-something i don't think i have ever seen to this extent on my own body. I am planning on a c-section and for the pros it offers, i dont love the major surgery part. I envy women who get to walk around and pick up their babies right after the birth. I also have a very hard time getting pregnant and both of these boys are miracles in my book.

yet i think of the scripture above and i wonder how many more times do i get to do this: create another life, truly blossom as a woman, relish (okay okay and fear) the prospect of the future life inside me?

I am well aware of the cliche nature of this post. I know we all hear "seize the day" and "appreciate who you are" and whatever else that makes us all feel better about ourselves. But i tell you what: sitting their, watching my gargantuan belly and poking-out-belly-button shift around to the rhythm of my unborn son, grunting when he has an overly-well-placed kick; this epiphany hit hard and hit home. What i am doing matters. It isn't just some negative experience meant to bring misery to women-kind. We have the agency, the opportunity to choose how to deal with these struggles.

Do my legs still gross me out? yes. Am i petrified that i will never have flat abs ever again? oh, yes. Do i fear what the intense and overwhelming first year will bring emotionally? Oh, hell yes!

but i watch caleb run around and discover new things and smile and none of it matters. I'd die for that little one and i'd die for this unborn son. My vanity, ego and pride need to be shelved anyway.
This challenge and honor is an opportunity to rise above the base human and search for the divine within.