Becoming

I have given over to the process of becoming.



I am here without choice or consultation but instead with the pull of nature and tides and things that are all their own.



The need to figure it all out has been replaced by the need to hold on, to keep pace, to sustain. It has occured to me that pregnancy in winter is an odd juxtaposition - growing life against the grain of a frozen backdrop. I alternate between feelings of swimming upstream through a dormant world and the idea of nesting into the cozy calm, hibernating and growing.



In my body, every priority seems to have shifted overnight, as though the marrow in my bones, the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins has one primary purpose of nurturing babies. They lead and I follow - as they stretch I stretch, as they grow I grow, as they move I move.



Every kick, every stretch, gives me worlds of hope and wonder, so that as they take, I receive exponentially. And in the end this process is not only inevitable but necessary.

Voice

When I was going through infertility, blogging was a cool breeze on a hot day. I had so much anger, passion, hope, fear, grief; words just tumbled out.

Going through pregnancy, words don't tumble out as gracefully. They're there, all right. But they're jumbled. I had three years of experience with infertility to help shape the sound and cadence of my voice. In six months of pregnancy, I've struggled to find a steady rhythm that will let it all out.

I feel like an awkward teenager struggling to find an identity. Although it left it's mark, infertility is behind me. Although I have a bulging belly swarming with life, I can barely bring myself to believe it's real.

As days pass, I stumble closer and closer to motherhood. I don't know what to think of it, let alone what to write of it. There's just so much there. But I wouldn't go back, and for that, I can only go forward.

Graceful or not, this is where I am.