God must smile on pregnant mothers

God must smile on pregnant mothers.

I realized today, while eating dinner with my husband, that even in the smallest of moments, God was giving me the Grace to care for, love and have patience for my son. I thought it would be a good time for me to share some of these funny and thought provoking moments with others so they can share in my laughter and in God's.

I am prepared for my son's spit-up, puke, drool, and only the Lord knows what else all over my shirt. How do I know? Every time I eat a meal, sip a drink, or think about a yummy dinner to prepare, I find that there are suspicious, newly created stains on my shirt that could only have come from yours truly.

As I look down to find that I cannot see my toes, getting down to lower regions of shelves, beds, and books becomes difficult/if not impossible, I see that God is giving me hope and excitement for the future: playing on the ground with my beautiful baby boy and seeing the world in a brand new way. Sometimes I have difficulty appreciating what is before me, so when it goes missing for a while and then is re-introduced to me, I come to look at it all from a new angle- this time, it will be from and through the little, curious eyes of my son.

I have found that frequent bathroom trips have to be planned into my days, a minimum of every 2 hours (which usually turns out to be every hour or hour and a half if I'm lucky). These planned trips are practice for the breaks that my son and I will need to make sure he is comfortable. My recent memory of the discomfort I've felt for not having access to a bathroom helps me to offer my son the right amount of patience and love for his needs.

As my pregnancy has progressed, my body has changed in ways previously unimaginable to me. Prior to being pregnant, I looked at mothers with child with loving and adoring eyes, simply in awe of their beautiful shape and the gift that they were carrying. While it is truly a gift, it is also a challenge to overcome the startling body changes and the fear/shame that I face when looking at the numbers on the scale. I find that I have to fight what the culture has engrained in my head: thin is beautiful, pregnancy is a nusance, youth is meant for what i want and not caring for/changing my life for someone else. Through the gift of my son, God has given me the Grace and peace to sacrifice what the world has promised me and offered me the opportunity to live and grow for someone else. As my body changes, I am giving of myself for my child, for my husband, for our family, and for God.