3rd Trimester – Time’s A Ticking…

Well we have crossed over and entered into the 3rd Trimester.  To get this one off and running we have now increased our doctor visits to every two weeks (to increase to weekly in mid-September), we’ve begun birthing classes, and we are a week away from our first baby shower.  Wow, how time flies.

But here’s the thing, at times and in a very many places I don’t feel like we are that “far along” or ready to be in this space.

First, there’s the house – truly we’ve not done any of the things we have talked about doing to be ready for the little guy’s arrival.  The to-be nursery is still a guest room – currently being lived in my my stepdaughter.  Over the next two weeks we are going to try to move it into full gear and transform it with a simple paint design (two main lines) and a clearing of the closet.  We have a crib (thanks Grandma/Grandpa) and a glider (thanks Grandmother/Granddad) and the bedding set.  So this will surely be what it needs to be – when it needs to be.

Second, there’s my body.  I was greatly aware that I felt not-sufficient when we attended our first birthing class last week.  You see, I haven’t gained any weight (lost a lot in the first tri and have now returned to what I was before we found out) and my belly has changed shape, but isn’t the belly ball that most everyone thinks about for pregnant woman.  I know the little guy is fine and growing, he’s a kicker a lot of the time too – but the physical piece has caught me off guard – or at least that I am struggling with it.  I have asked my doctor and he (our main doctor has just given birth herself, so we’ve started with a partner) says all is fine and we’ll keep checking in the weeks to come. In good news in this area I passed my glucose test which is great, but also discovered I’m anemic.  So some added iron in the mix and a bit more attention to iron rich foods (my husband can not stop taunting me with spinach and kale, both of which I hate.)

Finally, there’s work.  I am not as far “ahead” as I wanted to be, as the last couple of weeks have been more “pastoral care/crisis” mode than prep, planning, study.  That’s the nature of the work of a pastor, and I am truly blessed to be able to walk with people in all their ups and downs, but the “J-ness” of my mind is driving me nuts.  

So I have begun to hear the tick, tick, tick….and while we are still fairly calm and excited, my anxiety is growing.  I am praying that God would help to calm my spirit and mind, and rest in the promise of new life that lies ahead.

 

A great post on “Overwhelming Jesus” blog by Angela Denker

Today I was blessed with a blog post written by another pastor who is also a mom and is open and real about all that entails.  I share this post with you and give thanks for words that calm my heart even as my questions, fears, and anxiety grows as we await the arrival of our little one.

The post today is entitled, “Doubly Called: Accepting and Living Life as a Mom and a Pastor.”

Enjoy!

 

Questions…Doubts…Growing From Within

I am a person who likes to plan everything.  Part of my planning is so I can be prepared for what is to come; another part is probably a not-so-healthy desire to be in control.  So truly when my husband and I started talking about getting pregnant I “planned it.”  I began tracking everything and after some months there was nothing new on the horizon.  Ultimately when we stopped trying to be in charge it happened…we got pregnant.  And you know what? The timing has been quite perfect…so someone else knew what was going on. 😉

So now we are 26 weeks and 5 days pregnant, about to enter into the 3rd trimester, and the questions and doubts seem to be growing about as quickly as our baby is growing!  Can I really do this?  Am I going to be a good mom?  Did we wait too long? Are we ready for this?

Here’s the thing…these questions are always going to be here, whether it is before birth, the week after, on the eve of the first day of school, high school graduation, etc…  These questions are “normal” and “natural” and all parents have them….managing them is what is important.  When they become the center of thinking, well then I am not so sure these questions are helpful.

My recent prayer is this, “Dear God, I give you thanks for the growing life within me.  Help me make the best choices for the little guy.  And help me not become overwhelmed with the questions and the doubts of my ability to be the mom you are calling me to be. Help me know your love and grace so that I can share that love and grace with my son.  Amen.”  

 

Less than 100 days…

I just noticed that one of the freebie pregnancy apps that I have downloaded on my iPhone indicates that we are now less than 100 days until the little guy’s due date.  Less than 100 days!?!  What happened to the time? I am somewhat caught between great anticipation and excitement – kinda like being an elementary school kid on the celebration of the 100th day of a school year – and an extreme fear of holy crap?!

In less than 100 days our lives will change forever. In less than 100 days we will be surviving on even less sleep, all the while watching every breath as our little guy sleeps.  In less than 100 days we will be responsible for another human being – in a way that I have not yet experienced.  In less than 100 days our family will be blessed beyond our comprehension.

So what does one do at this time – this less than 100 days until the world changes forever?  Well, I’m trying to find extra sleep – I am already tired.  I am trying to stay on top of all of my responsibilities in my congregation and get ahead on a few so that come September I disappear when the little guy decides to arrive and trust that several big programs/ministries that I “run” continue.  We (my husband and I) are trying to get his kids (my stepkids) involved in the preparations (painting the nursery is happening soon!) We are praying that we keep our heads on straight and don’t get caught up in the latest fads (truly saw an ad for an electronic monitor that notifies you when you need to change your baby’s diaper!)

What does one need to do with less than 100 days before the arrival? Thoughts? 

 

So many things to do…

You know, I thought I was ready and that I would have a sane and relaxed sense about this pregnancy and coming birth. But in reality I fooled myself. There is so much to do to prepare for this massive and so blessed change of life. I have to keep up with regular doctor visits, watch what I am eating, declutter and clean the house, shop for a whole other human being, prep a space for this new human being, find a pediatrician, day care, plus one or two babysitters for those times when our schedules (my husband and mine) don’t cooperate and it is not during a weekday, think about baptism location and sponsors, pick a name, spend time together, go to birth classes, engage my stepchildren in the process….there is so much to do and time is tick, tick, ticking.

I have felt similar feeling of time “rush” at other times – prepping to head to seminary, waiting for my first call, preparing for ordination, departing for my second call, buying a house, getting married…but this time is feels deeper, wider, heavier. And my anxiety grows – like most first-time moms – with questions of “Can I do this?” “Am I cut out for this?” I think most if not all of us have lived these questions.

As I live these questions two verses comes to mind that help me – even in the faintest way – to relax and breathe.

I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. – Joshua 1:9

Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them,‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ – Mark 9:36-37

Go has given and will continue to give us the strength we need for the call we have received to be parents…and in that call we will see in a new way the very one who created us. This is my prayer as I enter into this coming week.

 

Ready or Not

So over the past two weeks I have been feeling a lot of movement and kicking, and it just makes me smile.  It is still unreal for me that in just about 3 months I will be holding my newborn son.  And the movements and kicking make me give thanks for every sign of life.  Like yesterday at the doctor’s office she listened to his heartbeat (150) and measured my belly.  She said everything sounded great and that she would see me in 3 weeks – even the decrease in the time before our next appointment (up until this point it was every 4 weeks) gets me quite eager and excited.

And while it is feeling more and more real, and the life that God is gifting us with is more than concrete for us right now, we are still no where close to being ready.  Are we ever ready? Can we read enough books?  Chat with enough friends? Ask enough questions? Purchase enough “essentials”? Prep our homes enough?  I don’t think so.  But what we can do is give thanks for each and every moment of life that we feel, that we anticipate, that we nourish.

The life that is growing in my belly is quite the gift and one that I am called to care for and nurture – ready or not.

Dear Lord, allow me to be ready enough, and when I am not, help me to look to others who are.  Amen.

 

Boundaries

OK, so I am not going to harp on this, but the conversation about boundaries (like my last post, “Do Not Touch“) has been stirring a lot this week in other areas of conversation with colleagues throughout the country. And I have to say, I am shocked.  I am shocked by the numbers of clergy (male and female included) who seem to believe that people aren’t being wrong or violating the person when they touch you or when they make comments about your appearance, etc…that this just goes with being a pastor.  One commenter particularly said that if we seek to prevent or stop these act of touching and speaking we may jeopardize the relationship.

My friends, no one…NO ONE deserves to be approached by anyone and touched or commented on body, appearance, etc…without invitation or a clear and intimate relationship that pays attention to context of touch or conversation.  A parishoner should not be let off “scott free” if they are making comments about a pastor’s weight, make-up, appearance; or if they are touching the pastor’s stomach (pregnant or not), backside, chest, face, etc…  All of these are violations of personal space and personhood and the longer we accept them as “normal” or “harmless” the longer we perpetuate in society that a person is all about the physical, and a person’s body is not their own.

Earlier today I had a conversation with a young mom who was telling me that she struggled with people touching her belly when she was pregnant, but that she struggles even more with people touching her 6 month old child, commenting on the child’s appearance or her appearance, or critiquing her and her partner’s parenting decisions (like cloth or disposable diapers, breastfeeding or not, crib or co-sleeping.)  In listening to her and watching her get more anxious as she shared experiences it just affirmed for me the need for us to speak up for ourselves, our boundaries, and our personal decisions.

Yes, if I look like I am tired or I am sick comments like, “Are you ok?” or “You look a bit flush.” are fine.  Comments like “nice shoes” or “that’s a great color on you” are ok (as long as you are making the same comments on a regular basis to my male colleague). But comments like, “You’ve put on a few pounds, maybe you shouldn’t eat that.”  or “That shirt really accentuates your curves.” or “Are you pregnant, you look pregnant.” are not appropriate and should be responded to pointing out the boundary crossing and correcting it.  If we aren’t able to engage conversation without the ability to care for and protect oneself, then the conversation is not healthy and does not help to lay expectations for relationships and cultural and social patterns in our lives.

So, I’ll leave it there.  I still stand by my convictions that no one has permission to touch my body or offer physical or sexualy laden commentary without my direct permission.  I will respect that space for you, and I ask you to do the same for me and all other people who come to know.

 

DO NOT TOUCH!

So today begins the 24th week of my pregnancy and I have learned to say some things that I have never had to say before.  The first is, “DO NOT TOUCH!”  Truly last week, for the first time in my life, I had to say to someone, “Please don’t touch my belly.”  I knew it was coming, I’ve heard it from so many other moms, but for some reason I thought being the pastor of a large congregation, being a tall and bigger woman who is assertive and strong that I would be able to avoid this.  Alas, this has not held out to be true. I was in the Narthex (entrance to the church) last week when an older parishoner (a person who is a member of my church) came up to me and two other women as we were talking and simply put her hand out and touched my belly saying, “Ah, we are starting to show the bump.”  I was shocked at first but then quickly and quietly said, “Please don’t touch my belly.” The parishoner pulled back, looking a bit embarrassed and tried to change the conversation with an “I’m sorry.”  I didn’t go any further, as I was running through my mind several questions:

1. Did that really just happen?!?
2. What did the two other women think as they saw what had just transpired?
3. Did I really upset her? Should I follow up with some witty statement about boundaries and personal space, or should I crack a joke and move on?

Here’s the thing, as a pastor there truly isn’t much in my life that is private and personal.  When I am sick the whole world knows.  When I am having a bad day the whole world knows.  When I totally blow something the whole world knows.  When I get pregnant my partner and I HAVE to plan meticulously how to make the information public, so the whole world knows – otherwise the whisperers will begin and pretty soon the story goes, “Hey, did you hear that pastor is pregnant with triplets and her husband only wanted a puppy!”

Yet, there are a few things that we can keep private and personal and one of those is our bodies. No one has the right to touch my body without an invitation (unless of course you find me lying in a pool of blood in the sacristy after a long Holy Week, then by all means you can touch me to see if I am alive and if you can help me – but call 911 first!).  In fact no one has the right to touch anyone else’s body without an invitation. This includes my belly during pregnancy. My belly, no matter if it is covered with a tee shirt or covered by an alb is NOT public property and touching it is a violation of my personal space and boundaries. How would you feel if I came up to you and reached out and touched your belly – pregnant or not?  Quite uncomfortable I assume. The same is true for me, so please refrain from reaching out and touching my belly.  Remember, I am a person just like you and my body is my own. (I suspect the same will be true – because I’ve heard stories – of our babies when they are born, so I am sure we will return to this subject soon enough.)

 

Expectations

José Manuel Ríos Valiente – Creative Commons, some rights reserved

I have bantered back and forth with myself about this blog for several months now and I have finally come to the place that I want to do this, I mean I think (we’ll see in the months to come), after all with the hormones that are raging one can’t be too sure of anything.  But truly, what brought me to create this blog was the continued sense of “expectation” that I have felt since we publicly announced that we (my husband and I) were pregnant.  Sure, we’ve felt a personal “expectation” in the sense that we are expecting our first child together, but the expectation that has brought me to begin to share my thoughts publicly are the expectations that others and society have for me as a woman, as a pastor, and as a soon-to-be-mother.  These expectations have ranged from, “Oh you should expect to feel tired all the time” (which I have!) to “Oh, you’ll have to breastfeed” or “You’ll have to take six-months at least off from your position to do it right” to “You’ll finally get the scheduling pressures of life with kids.” Some of these have been quite easy to hear and move on from, while others seem to imply that the 40 years of life and experience – including being a public school teacher, a youth director, and now a pastor – don’t amount to anything until I have a child.  Well, I am here to be open and honest about what I am feeling, what my own experiences have taught me, and to share some stories of ways that we (all of us) are helpful or burdensome in our expectations and advice that we so generously heap out on expectant mothers (and fathers).

So who I am?  I am a 40 something woman who serves as a pastor in a Christian congregation in the Pacific Northwest. Prior to serving as a pastor I was a middle school language arts/reading teacher, and a university instructor in Children’s Literature and Reading Methods.  My husband, who is also a pastor, and I met when I moved to begin new call in a new congregation. My husband has two children from a previous marriage – a 20 something, and a teenager who don’t live with us but are here throughout the year.  We found out in February 2014 that we were expecting, and after waiting some time to tell the kids, we went public to both of our congregations in April.

With that, I invite you to join me as I reflect on this journey, rant at times at important and not so important things, rave about people’s love and care and probably the latest and greatest gadgets, experiences and giggles, and generally just ramble about this life of becoming a mother, while living the very public life of a pastor. I don’t pretend to be an expert in any of this, yet I don’t pretend to be a complete novice.  I believe that we learn in and as community and I hope and pray this is another space of community in which we grow, laugh, learn, and love together – while trying our best to set expectations aside and simply and boldly live!