29 Weeks...

The more time goes by in the preparation to bring this new child home, the more I find myself often overwhelmed with emotion. It's amazing really, the creation of life. Letting go of control when it comes to this pregnancy has been frightening sometimes, but I've done it anyway. Perhaps sometimes, the free-falling gets just... Well, sometimes I recognize that really, my soul is naked here. I'm falling and trusting no matter what - breathing and twisting and just letting it be - and I am so vulnerable. We are all so vulnerable really.

But, believing is beautiful. Being vulnerable is beautiful. Letting life just stroke you on the soft underbelly of being is what it's all about, really. No big ego; no addiction; no false sense of security in money or material things... Just, life. Sleeping and waking up to a new day every morning. Looking at the leaves changing color. Focusing on what is real.

It's amazing, carrying this child in my belly. I remember Josie being at this stage. My tummy looks the same shape as with Josie. Wow, I really, really loved and still love her. And, I love Isobella the same way, and can tell she is adorable and different. I just pour all of my feeling into the hope that she will arrive here, safely and beautifully because you see, I am not content with simply a physically safe arrival. I want her to t have what Josie never did - a non traumatic, beautiful birth.

I will suffer any type of pain in the world - I will bear it all, no matter what, if she can be born in peace and comfort and love, without craziness and fear. When she comes, I want to catch her right there in the hospital, lift her up, wrap her up and look at her in her eyes. I want her weighed next to me by people I trust and like; I need her rooming in with me - never in the nursery. Really, after all is said and done I am in the hospital only because of my own strangely high pain threshold - I need to know what is normal and what is not. Also, for the benefit of others I care about who are not so trusting of the process of birth.

But, really, given the choice I would rather, still, go down to warm water and have my baby there. Alone or perhaps with a couple of people. Life is nothing to be messed with; nothing to be controlled - you can never control it anyway. You just need to surrender to it and feel it's every sensation like you're laying in a meadow and rolling across all of the grass and the flowers and sometimes the thistles underneath. And there will be dark days there, laying in the meadow. But, there will be days filled with sunshine as well. Because the continual motion and carrying on of life does not allow for continual darkness or light: variability is it's nature. You just have to open your eyes and see it for what it is. There is no "why me?" or "why did this happen?" - just things that happen, because they happen. Sometimes, things happen and sometimes, they don't. That's it.

I feel more and more like going through the baby things again and sorting them into sizes... I have already done that once, but now I find myself wanting to wash them again, dry them, fold them up in preparation for Isobella. Our 3D ultrasound is on Friday and I am just filled with joy at the prospect of seeing her face for the first time... I am filled with happy, overflowing tears and a knot in my chest at the thought of holding her in just a few weeks from now. I am so grateful that she is alive and that I have had the honor of holding her in me.

Here I am at 29 weeks...