January 27

Oh, God, I'm stressed again. And I feel afraid. I feel like a failure. Stress just takes over for me so easily. I didn't finish my PhD and now I have to go seminary later. And yet I'm growing a life in me.

Last night I felt so un-mother-like. My feelings of resentment toward the baby scare me because they remind me of how my mom felt about me.

With Respect to Vaughan and Wordsworth

(I wrote an earlier draft of this poem when I was pregnant. You can also read it here, where I've included music and imagery).

Oh God of deep and dazzling
Darkness

Pregnant you glow
with dark, dark light
until exploding, earth,
engorged with divine birth,
shudders to life
then bursts

God everywhere

in blade of grass
wet breath of babes
spiderwebs and dew

God everywhere

then earth,
like glass struck
and nearly shattered,
explodes
veiny icy webs shoot
across its surface
now murky but glittering

And before it drops
into a trillion dusty pieces
you blow
with breath almost still
and the world holds,

glittering,
pulses and flutters--
gauze on wind--
aloft,
puffed with
vapors of life

dazzling murky
earth
shot through
with you

and then you,
infinity,
trickle
trickle to a whisper
and die away,
leaving earth only murky,
no more glitter

Drained of its dazzle,
earth moans,
begins to shatter
beneath the greater weight
of that deep, dark silence

Absence
becomes your name

Absence everywhere

everything, everything
pregnant
with Absence

Piece by piece
the crystalline webbed,
once-breath-of-God
dissolves to dust

flutters opaque
upon the dreary dark
of day
bright, bright
and empty
so full of empty

Absence everywhere

in blade of grass
wet breath of babes
spiderweb and dew
now murky-dull

Earth
groans and
inwardly implodes,
emaciated it
births and births
until it begins to starve

awaiting another a birth
to dazzle
the bright, bright
darkness of its day

Oh Darkness
of deep and dazzling
God,
speak
speak
again
speak

Jan. 26 cont.

I feel so much shame for not planning this out carefully, for not being as careful as I could have been. And I feel some resentment toward this baby who's taking over my body and my mind and my schedule. I want my space back. And yet I'm excited--or at least I want to make my body a beautiful home for this baby and I want to make its entrance into the world one full of love and joy and hope. And just as I feel I'm made to be a pastor, I also feel that I'm made to mother. Oh, I so need to feel God's mothering love for me and my baby.

Pregnant! Jan 26, 2006

Oh, I'm pregnant! It was such a shock to see that pink line move across the test and so quickly too. I was in shock. Then I was elated and then I was utterly petrified, afraid I'd done something before I knew I was pregnant to hurt the baby--I remembered taken a bunch of Ibuprofen after hurting my back and then learned that really hot baths or anything that raises your body temp above 102 degrees could causes severe damage to the baby. I just cried and cried and felt so terrified. My doctor made me feel better, letting me know it was highly unlikely any of tht would have damaged my baby. And I've been feeling guilty for not being more careful that one time. I so wanted to plan this and prepare and feel ready (though I know that I probably never would have felt ready. I've never felt ready fro any major life change). A little prep and warning would have helped, though.

I woke up Monday feeling afraid but so happy. I began to think of these lines from Psalm 139:

13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!

Thinking about those lovely lines made me cry. I love the idea that God already knows and loves my baby, this little creature inside me. As I was driving later that day I suddenly felt very secure that I could create a beautiful, peace, loving environment for my baby and that my womb could keep her/him safe. Feeling that was so beautiful.

Last night I had my first major bout of nasueau and threw up and threw up. Oh, it was awful. Finally my headache is fading, though. I think it's as much from being pregnant as it is from all the anxiety and terror I was feeling before the doctor's appointment that I'd done somethig to harm my little one.