9 Months and 1 Day Pregnant

sometimes no news is good news...sometimes no news is just no news...sometimes no news is frustrating and leaves people on the brink of tears

For today, our "no news" most closely resembles the third sentiment.  Waiting {and waiting, and waiting} with absolutely no news has been grueling.  We have been so blessed to have had several families take pictures of our sweet boy who lives across the ocean.  It's been so amazing, and yet, it is a very real reminder that our baby is growing quickly without us.

It's hard to describe the way I'm feeling these days.  I'm sad that Bek has spent 293 days of his sweet little life without us, his family.  I'm frustrated that we are entering our eleventh week of waiting for a court date since we first saw his sweet face.  And, yet, I'm hopeful that this will be the week that we get to know the day that we'll meet our son.  And, I KNOW that all the frustration and anguish is more than worth it.

Today, it occured to me that I felt the exact same way that I felt on January 28th, 2005.  Will you take this walk down memory lane with me?

It was a Friday, the end of a particularly grueling week.  I knew it was just a matter of time until I would see my sweet baby girl's face, and yet, I irrationally felt that she might stay tucked away in the comfort of my abdomen forever. 

She was to be our first born, a true gift from God.  We'd been given her name almost ten years previous as we sat together in church, a newly-dating teenaged couple, dreaming of the family we'd one day call our own.  MELIA-an adaptation of an ancestor of Jesus, recorded in the book of Luke.  The beauty of her name was equalled by its origin and meaning-the polynesian form of Mary, meaning "wished-for child" or "beloved lady" {assuredly, she was both}.

On that fateful Friday, I continued to house my sweet child, 9 months and 1 day pregnant.  It wasn't fair!  I was fully aware of several people who had been induced 3 days, 5 days, a week and a half EARLY, and yet, here I was, an entire 24 hours overdue.  

I waddled {and I do mean waddled} my 5 foot 2 inch frame into the High School where I taught business classes to my enthusiastic {and unenthusiastic} students.  The additional 38 pounds I had "gracefully" packed onto my typically small body weighed extra heavy that day.  I took a deep breath and entered the front doors of the building where I ducked my head and wormed my way through the 14 to 18 year olds in the commons area.  My attempt to evade the students' eye contact failed miserably and before I knew it, the question I'd been trying to avoid was hurled at me for the first of many times of the day: "WHEN are you due?"

It was an innocent enough question, one that truly showed my students and co-workers genuinely cared about me and my babe-to-be.  However, the question cut like a knife, exposing the longing and frustration that I'd been trying so desperately to mask.  The tears began then, and I fought them all day long.

Fast forward almost seven years to January 23, 2012.  Today I walked into my school with slightly younger students and a slightly different story, yet the heaviness of longing for my baby, our third child, was overwhelmingly familiar.  The question was different, too..."Have you heard anything?"  Yet, the sting was the same, as was the feeling of consistantly choking back tears. 

It is amazing how many people care, truly care, about our baby boy joining our family forever.  I am so incredibly grateful that God has placed each and every one of you in our lives for "such a time as this."

The end of the story from 7 years ago was that God gave us our baby girl the very next day {Sunday is her 7th birthday} and she has been an amazing blessing to our family since day one.

And, the end of today's story?  Well, God's still writing it...