Month: January 2025

Well, I ate boatloads tonight, some salad and lots of protein, so we should have some good energy for the next while. We also have leftovers in the fridge for further nourishment in the morning and, really, all day tomorrow – I have enough from the past couple nights.

That being said, may God’s will be done.

God, help me to embrace your will. Grant me the promises you have offered to me, please. Help me to be my best self, while supporting others in being their best selves. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe and whole and holy. Thank you for our home. Please, keep it always safe, too. Bless us with an easy and beautiful natural delivery and birth. And help us name the child well when we see it. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

(Barely…)

Please, baby, come join us this Saturday. My mind and my body are really struggling right now – they are longing for you to join us, and to be released from the strains involved in waiting for that time. I know you have to come when it is time. I simply am hoping that the time has come.

God, release me of these fears, please, and help me to embrace this process and to allow my body to do your work with ease and fluidity. Thank you for this opportunity. Keep us three safe, please, and make us well. Grant us an easy and beautiful and calm and joyful delivery. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

(Totally got it wrong at first…)

Two weird experiences here. Both are… intimate, we’ll say. Definitely explicit in their revelations, so be forewarned now(!).

The first is one that gets me on a regular basis, especially in recent days and weeks. It is a bizarre experience in the first place to have something within one’s belly move independently of one’s body. Period. Now, eventually, I did adjust to the baby’s movements and pushes outward and all that jazz. However, one time where I still have not fully adjusted – it still kind of shocks me and feels both comical and quite weird – and can’t fully wrap my head around it is when I’m sitting on the toilet in the morning, going through the simple yet genuine morning bowel movement, and my belly sidedly starts jolting around and stretching.

I mean… Excuse me, baby, but I’m not just lounging on a chair here. I am actively employing my bowels. And I would appreciate it very much if you wouldn’t be so active right now, both because it’s weird and because it’s shaking things up that I’m attempting to relax and release right now…(!!!)

So, yeah, that one’s weird.

The second one is a whole ‘nother lever of bizarre. It started several days ago. The baby is head down, okay? That means its hands can easily push downward on everything near the bottom of my womb. So, essentially, the baby’s head is pushing downward on my pelvis and vagina. At times, however, the head isn’t engaged with the pelvis, and there’s some wiggle room. What the baby has done during several of these times has been a sort of left-right-left-right tap… with its hands… downward onto the inside of my vagina. Quite literally, it is as though the baby is knocking on the door to get out. Tap-tap-tap-tap! it goes on the inside of my vagina… no big deal. Like it’s checking if this is the fifth doorway through which it will be going to get to its next location.

I asked the midwife about this one specifically, and she said it is both normal and a totally weird experience to have. That made me feel better. Because I certainly felt strange saying that it felt like the baby was knocking on my vagina like a front door to someone’s home. But they apparently just do that sometimes. I guess they’re stretching out their arms and hands over the head, and, well, that’s just where they reach(!).

So, yeah… also very odd. Haha

That’s what I have for tonight! So many emotions and thoughts about different things, but I’m going to leave it there for now. Goodnight.

God, be with us, please. Grant us this easy and love-filled home-birth we desire and for which we have been preparing. Make this baby and me and my husband well and whole, please, and keep us safe. Help me husband to find the perfect work for us all, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

(Remembered as I started it tonight! And almost forgot by the time I finished typing it!)

Well, the chiropractor said my body is doing all the things, and I can expect the baby as soon as today. So, all this weird shifting and odd-feeling stuff is directly part of the process of heading into labor and birth. Good to know.

Actually, it makes me feel not-so-crazy. Because I have been feeling kind of crazy the past couple days. And no one quite seems to be able to relate or understand what’s going on for me, be it physically or mentally or emotionally. Having her declare today that everything has been directly tied to this next step sent so much relief through me.

I don’t know quite how soon it will happen, but it truly is happening.

As a note, my husband has actually been doing a great job of getting how hard it has been for me this past week, and of telling me that I’m doing a good job. He’s even rubbed my back while saying it some of the times. He’s doing a better and better job of supporting me in ways that make a true difference for me, and it has made a difference. Pregnancy is a very weird even where the mother doesn’t really do anything, not in the active sense of the word. But much is happening within her and with her. So, when I feel stupid for being overwhelmed and like everything is just so hard right now, and I straight up mean that existing is hard, it makes sense. It does sound stupid. But it also is 100% the truth that existing is hard right now. That’s the weirdness of pregnancy. All we have to do it stay alive, and that suddenly becomes one of the hardest things we’ve ever done.

At least, for some women, that’s how pregnancy goes. It’s a full spectrum, and I can’t even relate to the ladies at the opposite end who feel great and amazing during pregnancy. Yes, I feel absolutely blessed at the miracle happening within me. But I have not enjoyed most of the experiences tied to raising this miracle within me. Grateful? Absolutely. Enjoyment? Rare.

So, anyway, it’s coming. 🙂

Oh, and my husband even said tonight that my belly is clearly lower down than it has been. I noticed somewhat yesterday and definitively today that my leggings didn’t fit around my hips anymore, as compared to two days ago. They sat comfortably just below my belly before. But they barely have space to sit there while I’m standing, and they nearly cut off circulation entirely if I sit down with them on, just in that span right below my belly. No wonder my underwear started rolling down in the front so badly yesterday and the day before. Haha I hadn’t even thought of that until just now…

Indeed, it is coming. 😀 ❤

Thank you, God. Please, help my husband pass his tests and do a great job with his learning and training and flying. Guide him clearly forward on this path toward taking care of our family financially while doing something he truly loves. Guide us both clearly and gently as parents to our children and as partners to one another. Make us and the baby well, and keep us all safe, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

(Caught it before the number this time, but still at the last second!)

It feels like it’s getting close, like it’s about to happen. There’s something final that everything is waiting to have happen, though I’m not fully sure what it is. I have a couple guesses, and I will check them out tomorrow.

Whatever the case, God, be with us, please, and grant us an easy and safe and comfortable and love-filled labor and delivery and birth. Make me and my husband and the baby well, and keep us safe, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

(Barely caught it, right as I was about to hit the four!)

Yes, if your head is oily and has a scent of sweat, your head is dirty. Period. And rinsing it with water, which doesn’t take away the scent, does not remove the dirty.

But thanks for trying… perhaps… hmm…

Post-a-day 2024

I am just throwing this out there:

The sensation of tiny hands tapping on the inside of one’s vagina is, possibly, the most bizarre feeling in nature. It. Is. Weird.

Haha

Tap-tap-tap-tap they go in quick succession. Like knocking on the door. Like it’s totally normal and isn’t the most bizarre of feelings for the mother. Do all babies do this? Is it their way of checking that we’re ready for them to come out?

Haha

So, yeah… anyway…

Post-a-day 2025

My man is out there hunting food for our hearth this weekend. Well-timed for the upcoming arrival of our baby. Haha

His cousin’s husband invited him to go for the final weekend of deer season out to a deer lease. So, as I understand it, for very minimal cost to us, my husband is allowed to shoot a couple deer for food, should he cross them. And, indeed, he crossed one this afternoon and successfully shot it.

It certainly is sad, losing the life of a seemingly contented animal that was currently causing no harm to others. However, it is part of the circle of life, for one. Also, I have actually learned much about what happens when deer procreate without a predator. In short, they destroy the entire ecosystem. Any animal without its predator likely would do the same unintentionally. (Perhaps that’s part of man’s struggles these days, overpopulating the world beyond our means of sustaining such life while sustaining the planet and its ecosystems…) So, it is reasonably fair for them to be hunting there this weekend. Also, there are very strict rules on how many of what type of deer they are allowed to shoot each season, as part of the management of the ecosystem by the area manager. So, it’s a bizarre balance, but a balance, nonetheless.

That being said, I found it kind of funny tonight when I realized that my man was literally out hunting for food for us while I finish growing this baby at home. So original balance… kind of beautiful. Kind of silly, too. He isn’t able to earn money to purchase the food right now, so he’s providing in the original way. Which feels even better.

Thank you, God, for this blessing of a weekend for my husband. Thank you for giving him this time of fun and relaxation and men, as well as for allowing him this chance to provide food for us and to experience satisfaction in his work and effort. Please, keep him and Martin safe. Grant blessings on the spirit of the deer they collect – thank you for the sacrifice of them to our benefit. Please, make my husband and the baby and me well, and keep us safe. Grant us a beautiful and safe and easy delivery together in the coming days, please, to a healthy baby (girl, please). Thank you for our this home and this life. Help us to be the best people we can be, and help us to choose to be those people each day and night, and to encourage and support one another in doing so. Help us to be wonderful parents to our children. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

(Remembered before I finished writing it this time!)

“I’m stuffed,” I said, declining something my husband was offering me to eat. I have not been able to eat well enough to be “stuffed” throughout most of this pregnancy, so this was, ironically, as I felt terrible because of the stuffed-ness, a good thing.

My husband turns to me, smiling, and declares, “Good!” And he means it.

However, looking right at me and without missing a beat, he adds, “You look it!” His smile gets even bigger at his joke.

“Patrick!” I fuss at him, and we suddenly both are laughing. I said something to the effect of, ‘Don’t say stuff like that!’ He knows my brain gets irrationally panicked at weight-related stuff these days.

Fortunately, however, my brain accepted that he was clearly joking and not in a mean way at all, so we had a very good laugh over the stupid and silly joke that the massively pregnant woman, due in three weeks, looks stuffed. Not with food, of course.

Coincidentally, he is out of town with extended family tonight, so they can go hunting together tomorrow morning and Sunday morning. It’s just the two of them. And they’re all the way on the other side of Texas. But I think it shall be very good for the both of them, both to spend time together and to be out doing manly things without their wives and family. I think they both need to rest from all of us right now. I am so glad he invited Patrick. And that Patrick was able to make it work(!).

(By the way, if you didn’t get the coincidence, it’s that they’re hunting deer, which get stuffed after being hunted.)

He had a last-minute lesson scheduled for him yesterday, to take place this morning. The cousin’s husband was planning to leave town this morning to head to the deer lease, six hours away. Fortunately, the weather is good enough this weekend, so Patrick rented a plane, and flew himself to a small airport very close to the lease, and was picked up by the cousin-in-law there. Flying takes roughly half the time of driving, including a stop for gasoline, so he was able to do his morning lesson, drive to a different airport altogether, and then fly himself out to meet near the lease. Super cool to me!

And he flew over my brother’s house and property on the way, and my brother saw him. Also very cool!

When they finish Sunday morning, he’ll be dropped off at the airport again, at which point he’ll fly himself back to town, and probably would be home before the cousin-in-law is. Actually, whom am I kidding? He more likely will dawdle and fly around to other spots and such before returning fully, and will be home well after the in-law. But he could be home way sooner, if he so chose to be. Haha

Anyway… going to sleep. It kind of feels like the next few days will be big changers for me and us… just throwing that out there. I hope it is in all good ways, of course(!).

God, guide us, please. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe. Grant us a safe and easy and loving and healthy labor and delivery. If it be your will, grant us this baby girl. Thank you for our home and our lives. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

(Man! Caught myself immediately this time, but still! Haha)

Post-a-day 2025

Sometimes, I find myself wondering how women can have done this more than once. And then I remember how the majority of them wouldn’t have had the incredibly difficult time we have had with this pregnancy, as I am in an outer percentile on the suck scale.

But, probably more often these days, I find myself feeling embarrassed and wuss-like for how much I am struggling and how much I almost-resent those around me who have gone through pregnancy already, and, often, more than once. I’m feeling a lot of not-caring about things around me, and being just kind of tired and over it about other people. Yes, they did pregnancy. Got it. Loads of women throughout history have done it, obviously. It’s why we still exist. But my experience with it has been really sucky, and I’m tired of people acting like I should be fine or should get over it because they went through it, too. They had their experience and I’m having mine. Mine really sucks, and I’m allowed to feel dreadful within it, no matter what anyone else has experienced, even if she had a had pregnancy. She didn’t have this one with these challenges that are specifically difficult for me because of who and how I am at this point in my life. Just because she made it through her own tough times doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be struggling during my own tough times. Yes, I will get through it and be okay and all. But I’m not okay right now, and that is completely okay.

Indeed… I am not okay right now, and that is completely okay.

I guess the outside judgement has been getting to me lately. Haha. I’m so tired of it, and more so than anything else, perhaps. Let me have a hard time, folks. I don’t mean to make me suffer or anything. But allow me the space and the right to have a hard time – this is hard stuff for me. And the way women tend to encourage lately has been horrendous. ‘Oh, I remember,’ and, ‘You’ll be done soon,’ or, even, ‘Just wait […],’ which is kind of the worst of them all. Just wait until we arrive at the point for which we have been longing, you mean? For actually having a child and being able to work together to raise this beautiful addition to our family, this absolutely gift from God? We’ve known most of our lives how that part is extremely difficult and exhausting. That’s the challenge we happily took on within this marriage. We knew it was hard and we chose it. We did not know how hard this pregnancy time would be for me or for us. And it has been intensely so. We do not resent God for it – we trust that it has been a necessary challenge and chance for growth. But it has been difficult to accept the negative ‘support’ I have received from many directions.

I saw a baby onesie online that read, “My mom doesn’t want your f***ing advice”. A bit vulgar, to be sure, but it makes clear the point. Haha The same goes for people’s looking down on me regarding pregnancy.

After Mass yesterday, as I was walking slowly and very uncomfortable toward the car, a lady holding a 7-month-old looked right at me at said, “You’re doing a great job.” And it was clear that she meant it. We ended up talking for five to seven minutes, and it was absolutely lovely. She was holding her third child and shared that she wants to have another. I asked if her pregnancies had been somewhat easy, and she said calmly that they absolutely had not been and that she had been dreadfully sick for them all, much as I have been.

And I think that’s why I felt her love and support. She saw that I was truly struggling and not just simply heavy and physically uncomfortable. (I think most people assume it is only the latter two when they see me.) She also was able to relate and, therefore, connect with my struggle and say something that truly helped and encouraged.

Even when people comment on that I’m getting close and whatnot, it doesn’t actually leave me feeling any better. It’s almost annoying, somehow. I guess because it’s kind of like, duh… I’d already noticed that myself. Seems silly, but that’s kind of how it feels when people say something like that.

True encouragement comes from love and acknowledgement of the struggle, I think. The lady yesterday got the struggle and sent me love. She calmly embraced my experience and smiled lovingly back at me, truly supporting and caring for me.

It was like magic.

I guess it was a pure piece of God.

I hope to be that way for others.

Thank you, God, for her understanding and her love. Thank you for your love. Thank you for this baby and this opportunity. Help us to be our best selves each day and night. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe. Help us to have a lovely and safe and comfortable labor and delivery together. Keep your angels around us, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

(Huh… I guess we’ve switched years now. Haha)

Post-a-day 2025*