Category Archive

Yesterday, we spent the whole day at a hospital, keeping vigil by a relative in her last hours on earth.  I could not help but feel a sense of holiness in the moment.  Death is such a mystery.  A secret known only by God.

Yet even as I contemplated the departure of this relative, I also reflected on the formation of new life in my belly.  Conception, too, is a mystery and a secret known only by God.  How a human is knit together in the unseen places is hard to fathom. 

We have yet to tell our extended family that we are expecting.  Part of me wishes they could have known yesterday so that in the midst of grief, there could still be a glimmer of hope.  They will know soon enough.  My sister-in-law called it “Lion King” ish – the cyclical nature of the circle of life.  But isn’t that true though?  And isn’t that the good news of Jesus?  That in the midst of death, there is new life waiting to be born.

Today, we went to see my family doctor for our first prenatal appointment.  It seems like everything’s ok!  She referred us to an obstetrician (aka, the OB, or what T calls “the baby doctor”) in our area who happens to be female and asian (I was surprised when I heard her name – I guess I had expected a caucasian male doctor?  haha).

After giving me a thorough check-up, she sent me down to the lab to get some more tests done.  Eight vials of blood (ok, maybe it was six or seven, but it sure felt like eight!) and a urine sample later, I was free to leave.  I really had not expected so many tests.  And she said this was only half of them!

We have another appointment with the family doctor next week to finish the other half of the tests and fill in a big chart for the OB.  According to the doctor today, my projected due date is November 29, 2011.  We’ll see what the OB says.

Good news is that I’m only a couple weeks away from the end of this secretly sicky and tired first trimester.  =)

This week, baby is the size of an olive.  =) 

What’s amazing to me is that he/she already has everything that makes up a human body.  Measuring at just about an inch, the baby already has fully formed eyes, ear lobes, internal organs, fingers and toes – everything!  It tells me that God is a God of details.  I can’t imagine trying to make a functioning sculpture that small.

What amazes me more is that the olive-sized little being is merely what we can observe.  God alone is aware of this new person’s personality, likes, dislikes, and character – what we cannot see about him or her.  That is the stuff that we will spend the rest of our lives trying to discover!   

I have been pondering the mystery of God lately.  This is one of those instances that brings me into that realm of mystery.

It’s said that one of the effects of pregnancy is vivid dreams.  In the past week, I have dreamt about paragliding onto a ship, escaping from an evil witch and her minions, driving to a retreat on a First Nations reserve and one of my professors asking to take home some of my chow mien.  Haha.  With these kinds of adventures, I’m fully content living in my 2-bedroom apartment all day long!

In general though, I can identify several themes in my dreamland.  They all pretty much relate to my physical/wakeful state of being:  food (because I’m feeling hungry and need to get up to eat), trying not to tell people that I’m pregnant, telling people that I’m pregnant, and trying to find a bathroom (because I actually need to get up and go).

I really look forward to when I can tell people we’re expecting.  Four more weeks of secrecy!  In a way though, I am glad we chose to only tell our immediate family until the first trimester is over.  I feel like it gives me some space to finish up my schoolwork and do some internal spring cleaning before the next big thing gets ushered into my life.  I want to capitalize on this time of not needing to mention the baby in every conversation and remember that there are many other topics of interest out there.  For that reason, I have yet to put my hands on a single baby book.  I figure once the world knows, I’ll have books and advice aplenty.

Every day is now an experiment in what I like to eat and what I don’t like anymore.  The latest development has been hot sauce and pepper.  I discovered that if I add pepper or just a bit of hot sauce to my food, I don’t get the gaggy-I-want-to-throw-up feeling before I reach the end of the meal.  I never used to like either.

I’m still loving fruit.  Although I haven’t been as crazy about oranges as I was when I first found out I was pregnant (they were and still are pretty much the only thing I’ve found that I can stomach first thing in the morning). 

Meat is definitely less appetizing.  Sigh.

Why do you care about this?  I don’t know.  But it’s fascinating to me, how I’m changing, and so you get to read about it.  =)

I’ve never been a barfy sort of person.  Whenever I get a stomach bug, I usually don’t throw up (I’ll spare you the details as to what actually happens).  Even after getting pregnant, I’ve considered myself blessed that my nausea only shows up every so often, and that it hasn’t resulted in me running to the bathroom.  All this to say, I don’t have much experience with vomit.

Until this morning.

Today was the first time I actually lost half my breakfast.  Surprisingly, I felt much better after the fact.  And I learned an important lesson:  if you’re gonna throw up, do it in the toilet.  NOT the sink!  Makes for better clean up.  There’s a reason why people in movies are bent over toilets, folks.  And not just because it’s more dramatic.

On the bright side, I guess it was good practice for all the times I’ll be cleaning up what my baby will spit up. 

These days, I feel like I’m living in a borrowed body.  Like someone switched bodies on me while I was sleeping.  My sleep rhythm has changed, my eating preferences have changed, and the way I look and feel have already started to change.  I used to be most productive in the afternoons.  Now afternoons are reserved for naps.  It’s a strange sensation, to say the least.  I’m learning new things about my “home” every day.  And I’m making adjustments accordingly.  There is much need for grace here. And openness to what is new and unfamiliar.

I guess for most of my adult life so far, my body has been pretty consistent.  Going through this experience helps me to appreciate what it might be like for those who are aging or ill.  It’s really out of our control.  And the best we can do is accept it, perhaps laugh at it (or cry), and keep going.