Hey, Mr Stork, WHERE IS MY BABY?

I can honestly say that over the last few weeks, as silly as it may be, I’ve been through LOTS of different “faith stages” while we wait on this baby girl. I certainly hoped, when I wrote about our sweet anticipation, that my next post on this blog would be contain lots of pictures of us holding our sweet baby girl. But still we wait. I know it is nothing new for a baby to be born past due date- its just an estimation, right? But I’ve found the waiting to be hard. If for no other reason than to pass the time, I thought it would be good to document some of the “stages” I’ve been in over the last few weeks.

When we hit about 35 weeks in this pregnancy I’ll confess to a state of anxiety. I begged the Lord that He would let this baby wait. There were so many things in my life that felt unstable and I felt utterly unprepared to be a mother to three. I was having lots of conversations with my Jesus at that point about working on my heart and preparing me…and again just asking for more time.

and it was granted…

At about 37 weeks I just kicked into high gear preparation mode. RRL and I worked hard over Memorial Day weekend to clean out her closet, put together her bed, wash her tiny clothes and blankets. It was so much fun and so exciting. Working together on those tasks reminded me what a great team I married onto and gave me renewed confidence in the Lord’s care for our family. I released the burden I had been carrying to do so much on my own and just relished in the joy of being a mom.

Then we started waiting…

At first the waiting came with an amazing peace. It was awesome to be able to go into her room, fumble through her clothes and just sit and dream about her. With the stress of preparation removed and no big events on our calendar (cleared in case she arrived), we enjoyed lots of fun family time.

but still we waited…

My brother arrived a few days before her due date and my mom came shortly after. I knew my brother could only stay a short time. He was leaving here on the 11th to spend a few days at my parents house before heading back to his home in Alaska to prepare for his Qatar deployment in a couple of weeks. I started begging the Lord that he would allow Lt. D to hold his niece before he left (funny how in just a few weeks time I went from begging that He would let her WAIT to be born to begging that HE would hurry up her arrival). I believed with all of my being that this request would be granted and was even more sure when Lt D’s original flight got canceled forcing him to stay with us for one more day….surely that was a SIGN, surely he was staying so he could meet his niece. I was so SURE that I put on make up and dried my hair before I went to bed that night to be ready for a quick trip to the hospital!

But she didn’t come that night…

When Lt D got on the plane the next morning I’ll confess that I fought hard against bitterness and disappointment. I was just plain SAD. I know that baby sister will meet her uncle soon enough and will love him every bit as much as her big brothers do, but still. I didn’t understand (still don’t really understand) WHY. Sounds so silly, looking back, but expectations of any kind that are not met in the way you would like them to be are just hard to get past. I spent a couple of days struggling through this in my heart, but was greatly encouraged by friends and family who were helping us wait and who have faced the waiting themselves.

And real life continued…

I made a decision this weekend that if baby sister wasn’t going to be in a hurry, I was not going to sit around waiting on her. This week (week 41) we are enjoying our time as a family (see the emotional rollercoaster theme?). I enjoyed a fun girl’s night on Friday night, we went to the zoo yesterday, and got to enjoy Summer Spectacular last night. We’re went to the park today with some fun friends, enjoyed eating lunch with RRL’s sister and plan to go back for night two of SS fun. We’re taking it one day at a time, and just waiting. The anticipation is THICK in the air at our house, but we are enjoying each additional day we get to make family of 4 memories. I’ve loving having my Momma around and getting to watch her interact with her two biggest fans…her grandsons. I would have missed so many of these moments if I had been in the hospital with baby Sister. I’m not taking those moments for granted these days!

So we wait some more…

We are scheduled for an induction next Monday if baby Sister doesn’t make up her mind on her own. Please pray with me that she’ll come before that is necessary. And pray that we’ll just be able to enjoy our time of waiting. Join me in praising the Lord for my good health and the good health of our baby and pray that we’ll just stay focused on the blessings.

We so appreciate that there are so many of you WAITING with us.

In anticipation of His perfect timing,
ABL

Oh, and in case you were worried that we are not finding any humor in all of this, we did stop by the stork exhibit at the zoo yesterday and had KJ yell at the birds “Hey, Mr. Stork, where is my baby sister?” You know, just in case a stork has anything to do with it 🙂