Sweet anticipation is dipping the stick, holding your breath, and looking closely again before showing your husband. It’s lying still for the ultrasound, searching for the nebulous profile of your baby and asking, “Is everything okay?” It’s a sigh of relief when you’re told that it is.
It’s the excitement of announcing the news and seeing the look on your mother’s face when you tell her she’s going to be a grandmother. It’s the prospect of giving life that came from your love. It’s imagining who this little person inside you will be. Will she look like you? Will he have his dad’s eyes? What is her soul’s purpose?
Sweet Anticipation is touching your belly, enchanted with tiny hiccups and kicking. It’s suffering with nausea, heartburn, and gas. It’s wasting days reading lists of names, double-checking and making sure none are forgotten. It’s picking out colors for the nursery, buying a crib and a rocking chair. It’s swooning as you fold each terry sleeper. It’s crying over sappy TV commercials and counting the days.
Increase Islands of Togetherness
For reasons that can’t be adequately explained, expecting a baby is a very sentimental thing, perhaps because it’s not a singular event but rather a joint undertaking. You and the man you love have embarked on a nine-month journey that gives you a chance to know each other in a deeper way. You’re interdependent now, and a synchronicity is arising between the two of you and your unborn child.
When Marla was about one month pregnant, she packed a big picnic and took Jake to the park. Jake was already the father of two children from a previous marriage, and, although they had frequently talked about having children together, she wanted to talk it over one more time before she shared her suspicion. “Would you like to have more children?” she asked. His response melted her heart. “I’ve prayed that God would give me a third chance.” He acknowledged that he hadn’t been there when his two children were babies and wanted the chance to be a better father to an infant and a better husband for his wife. For that afternoon, that bench became an island where she listened to Jake’s anguish at not being there for his first wife and their sons. Difficult though it was to hear his pain, she listened as he poured out his heart. Her listening was a healing force, and provided the impetus, too, for him to face his responsibilities and take steps to make things right.
An island of togetherness is full of possibilities for healing, for closeness, for understanding, for romance -- especially romance, because amid all the baby preparation, sometimes the romance and the love between the two of you gets forgotten. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Expanding your family can have a romantic aspect, especially when you’re willing to talk to each other like you did when you were courting. You have new experiences to share. Ask your partner how his life has changed since your pregnancy. Tell him what you’re looking forward to. Listen carefully to each other. You’ll renew your relationship as you share the events of the day. You may not be able to solve each other’s problems, but you can be one another’s sounding boards.
It’s such a pleasure coming home at the end of the day to see the face of your beloved. Spending time together ignites some of the spark that brought you first together. Quality time doesn’t need to be elaborate. The most tender moments are often the simplest: sitting on the step while your husband washes the car, reading the newspaper over breakfast, taking a walk. Sometimes you don’t need words to feel the loving energy between you; other times you want to express what you’re thinking and feeling.
Lauren said, “As my husband worked at his computer, I’d slip up quietly and put my hand on his back and kiss his cheek, or I’d sit beside him and read. Sometimes we wouldn’t say a word, but he’d look over at me with such tenderness that for a brief moment we were on our own island of togetherness.”
Snuggling, hugging, holding hands, laughing, smiling and listening will transport you to your own island -- you can go there for brief intervals several times each day. Healing moments of togetherness are the invisible glue that holds a couple and a family together. They are the reason you came together in the first place.
To the mother alone it has been given, that her soul during the nine months should touch the soul of the child.
--Jean Baptiste Lacordaire
Keep a Possibility Journal
A possibility journal is a storage place for thoughts, feelings, dreams, and longings. It is a place for wishes. It begins as a blank book with blank pages. As you write, draw, paste, and color, you turn a blank book into a possibility journal. And with that journal in hand, you can turn possibility into actuality. You can tell your story and fashion a vision. With a vision you have a road map and a direction for your life.
Pregnancy is about hope, hope for yourself and your child. Within every woman is a wellspring of vibrant energy that is stirred and unleashed when she is pregnant. By exploring your creative potential, you can unlock this power and find new determination. With determination, you can turn your hope into action. Let me show you how. Women have children for many reasons, some of which aren’t positive or noble. Some become pregnant by accident, others plan it because they’re lonely, bored, or to fill a hole in their own hearts. Regardless of the reasons -- noble or selfish -- you got pregnant; you’ve been given an opportunity. Your possibility journal will be the guide to discover the opportunity, expand it, and grow as a consequence. You’re having a baby for a reason. What is your purpose for bringing a baby to your family? Write your answer in your journal. Look deeply within and write as honestly as you can.
Every mother-to-be wants her child to take the best of her and become more. But not all of us accomplish this task. Some moms become jealous, fearful, or distracted; without a clear vision of themselves as mothers and women, they get off track. With a possibility journal, you can stay on course in your own life and guide your baby from birth to adulthood to become a beautiful, responsible, honest human being. I’m not talking about pushing. I’m talking about knowing yourself well enough that your child sees from your example that wishes do come true. He sees from your life what it means to accomplish something meaningful; by watching you she learns to live with joy and integrity. She will see your heart singing and is therefore free to sing her own songs.
What do you wish for yourself? Cut out five pictures from magazines that represent your deepest wishes. Paste them in your journal and write a sentence underneath. Now paste five pictures that represent what you wish for your baby. What kind of life do you want him to have? What do you want to teach her? What beauty do you want him to see? What actions are you willing to take?
Write down five qualities that you admire in yourself. If you have trouble, ask friends to help you, and write down what they say. Think about what you can do to enhance those qualities. Do you need to become a better person? In what way? Is there unfinished business from your past that needs cleaning up? With colored markers, decorate the pages any way you choose. Write a list of your favorite words, your favorite children’s books, your favorite nursery rhymes, your favorite hiding spot. Write a poem for your baby and put the words in a vertical line. Or write a letter to your unborn child and tell her something silly, or write something from your heart.
Actions begin with hopes and wishes. Writing in a possibility journal turns hopes into vision, which, when ripened, evolves into action. That’s your opportunity.
Don’t forget that compared to a grownup person every baby is a genius. Think of the capacity to learn! The freshness, the temperament, the will of a baby a few months old!
--May Sarton
Surrender to the Process
Pregnancy is a process that invites you to surrender to the unseen force behind all life. When I think of pregnancy, I immediately think of gardening. I look at it this way: It is enough for each of us to plant a seed, provided that we care for it, but we cannot make it grow. We can’t actually make a seed grow--a seed grows because of the combined force of our care and an unseen force in the universe that is the energy behind all life. That’s the miracle of life. And the seed doesn’t even have to struggle. We struggle much more than we need to. That is true regarding just about everything.
My grandmother was my gardening mentor. She said there was the joy of harvest, and that’s a wonderful and exciting happening. But, she said, gardening also requires quiet diligence and respect for the whole process, and in a way that is just as satisfying. I was very young, and I loved it when my grandmother talked to me about all that. She had grown blind, but still she had one of the most beautiful gardens I ever saw. Being blind didn’t stop her one bit. Yes, there can be many gardening disappointments and frustrations. Frost may come and wipe out the flowers, or rabbits may eat up your crop. That kind of thing is frustrating and hurts, but, if you’re a real gardener, it won’t stop you.
On your journey to becoming a mother, there can also be disappointments and setbacks. My friend Linda had two miscarriages before she carried her baby to term. After the second miscarriage, she was depressed and asked “why me?” Many times she cried herself to sleep. She prayed for understanding, but she never understood. Then one fall day while walking in a garden with only a few summer blooms remaining, she stopped asking for answers and surrendered to her helplessness. “Life cannot be understood,” she cried, “it can only be lived.”
Mary wanted natural childbirth and had decided on a water birth. She made arrangements to have a birthing tub at the hospital -- it took her months of preplanning. When she had an emergency cesarean, she was shaken, but since she didn’t want her disappointment to interfere with her care of the baby, she talked it through with a close friend and her doctor. As she came to understand that the cesarean was performed to save the life of her baby, she was able to let go of her regret and not blame herself. We may think we know what is best, but often in pregnancy and childbirth we have to surrender to a higher wisdom -- we can’t run the show alone.
Surrender is the melting of your will, the letting go of how you think things should be in favor of stepping into the unknown and trusting the unseen life force that gives the tulips, daisies, roses and daffodils their fragrance and color. When you surrender, you turn the outcome over to a higher force, having faith that the greatest good will occur. In that moment of surrender, your heart softens, your mind opens, and you are given the freedom to see clearly, without your own expectations clouding the view. It is in surrender where you meet your baby with unconditional love and fully embrace the spirit of the garden that is within you, your spouse, and your child.
In her own interest, every pregnant woman should make a habit of never entering a room without making a note of the quickest way of getting out of it and into either fresh air or a bathroom.
--Audrey Hull
Excerpted from the book, Expecting Baby by Judy Ford
(Conari Press, 1-800-685-9595, copyright 2001)
