reflections on the fourth trimester

Clara was born two days after I wrote my last post here—11 weeks ago today. We have one week left of what some people call the “fourth trimester,” when she is separate from my body and yet still constantly attached, when she isn’t getting everything she needs via 24/7 physical connection and yet still kind of is. I don’t expect a switch to flip at the end of the 12th week, but it’s still a little momentous to me that we’re nearly there.

I knew it would be hard. I didn’t know it would be impossible for as long as it was.

I didn’t know I’d spend the first week in a haze of euphoria mixed with pain, or that weeks two and three would feel like existing in a black cloud of despair. I didn’t know I could get so angry at someone so innocent or so worried about someone so small. While other new moms in my Facebook due date group talked about “love at first sight” and “hearts so full,” I felt empty and terrified, like a shell of myself trying to find my way through a labyrinth at midnight all alone, with a tiny dependent creature to keep alive at the same time. I remember thinking so many times, and still do some days, that all I wanted was to go to work—back to a familiar place, simple tasks, clear objectives, and a community of friends.

I know it’s all the rage these days to talk “authentically” about what things like motherhood are “really” like. But I find there’s a sheen of polish on most of those discussions, too, and I think that’s why—even though I was fully prepared for it to be tough and thankless to care for a newborn all day—I was not prepared to do six solid weeks of it with hardly a glimmer of joy. That’s the unpolished truth.

Then she smiled at me intentionally for the first time and what had been impossible finally became just hard. And I can do hard.

Maybe it’s different for the moms who are in love at first sight. Maybe their babies didn’t have an intolerance to dairy that caused them constant pain, or maybe their babies don’t have high palates, preventing them from feeding effectively. Maybe they didn’t go three weeks without sleeping two hours together (because you can only “sleep when the baby sleeps” if the baby actually sleeps). Or maybe they are simply healthier people, holier people, better at doing the impossible.

It’s deeply humbling to see this cavernous lack inside myself. First John 4:19 comes to mind: “We love because He first loved us.” He did the impossible. He sacrificed everything without a glimmer of joy in return, and He did it without succumbing to the exhaustion, the rage, the fear, the desperation. Even if I had never smiled back at Him, He’d have done it all the same.

I wish I had naturally been that mom. As much as I loved her, I wasn’t. As much as I love her today, I’m still not. But I hope I’m getting closer.

life lately

Thinking

nonstop, about everything. As is usual for me—and the more thinking I do, sometimes, the harder it is to sort through all the thoughts and write them out. So this has been a very quiet site for the last month or so. I figured a list like this would give me just enough structure to brain-dump a bit, and maybe the clarity to write with more focus will follow.

Feeling

weird. That seems like the best word to describe the feeling of being pregnant. It’s weird to have a stomach sticking out in front of me and pulling on my back, and it’s weird to be unable to tighten up my abs like usual. It’s weird to feel the thuds and thunks against my insides. It’s weird when I can see them from the outside. It’s weird to get the app updates every week that tell me how big the baby is using fruit or vegetable illustrations—right now she’s as big as a head of lettuce. How in the world does a head of lettuce fit in there?

Eating

a lot of fruit. Strawberries and cherries are in season and I eat so many of them at work! I also just discovered New Zealand sungold kiwis, and I don’t know how something round and yellow and egg-like can taste exactly like the best raspberry I’ve ever had, but I love them.

Noticing

that there’s a very fine line between “Bible student” and “Bible snob.” I love talking and learning about the Bible, so I gravitate toward Facebook groups and podcasts that share my enthusiasm, but I’m often turned off by the way some scholars seem to lord their knowledge over others, or make a mockery of those who try to share in it. It seems to become a competition over who is the better Pharisee rather than a celebration of the God who invites in the little child, and it makes me sad.

Wondering

if all the “problems” I have seen in the Church are really just projections of what I see in myself. I’ve struggled with seeing the Church as more of a skeleton than a body—well-structured with truth, but lifeless, motionless, lacking in spirit and warmth. But the reality is, that’s me most of the time. As an Enneagram 5 who finds great security in attaining knowledge, it’s a very short step for me out of relationship and into religion. Pharisaism comes easily; community, vulnerability, and love are hard. I have to be vigilant to seek after knowing God intimately and experientially rather than merely knowing Him theoretically or theologically.

Playing

“O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” and a lovely arrangement called the “Children’s Medley” on my piano. Ever since I got far enough along in my pregnancy that I learned the baby can hear sounds outside the womb, I’ve been trying to play and sing her a few songs on a regular basis. These are my favorites.

Making

sooo much granola. I used to fast from evening until around noon the following day, but I’m back to three meals a day since becoming pregnant, and having fast and healthy things available for when hunger hits with ferocity has helped me a lot. I use coconut sugar, monkfruit, and whole oats so that I don’t feel bad about sprinkling a few chocolate chips on top! ;)

Reading

the Epistles and the very last few Psalms, because Bible180 is almost at an end! It always seems like such a long, hard challenge when I’m in the middle of it, but then I blink and it’s June and I’m almost done. It’s so good to be back in the Story again.

Creating

a baby quilt with a giant, scrappy patchwork strawberry on it. My obsession with fruit apparently extends beyond merely eating it.

Asking

if trying clothes on in a store is actually overrated? I have always felt that fitting rooms are absolutely nonnegotiable when clothes shopping, and I definitely still think so about certain stores where I don’t know my sizing, but since most fitting rooms are closed right now, I’ve been doing a lot more online ordering or grabbing off the rack to try on at home. My success rate at picking clothes I like has actually surprised me, and trying stuff on at home is SO much nicer than in a public fitting room. Thankfully most stores are back to accepting returns when something doesn’t work out, so it’s really the best of all worlds (especially now that I have to figure out the maternity clothes situation).

Watching

so many hummingbirds zoom through my garden. I got a bunch of fuchsia starts for fifty cents each this spring and filled up all my containers and baskets with them, and they’re finally in fully bloom. The hummingbirds love them. (Random aside—I have somehow been spelling the word “fuchsia” as “fuschia” for my entire life. Apparently that’s wrong.)

Enjoying

working my standard Thursday morning shift at Spud’s Produce. Thursdays are the best morning to work, in my opinion, because we get 2-3 grocery loads delivered on top of our usual produce load. I like how much there is to do, and that so much of it involves replenishing dwindling stock on the shelves till they are full and bursting again. I usually get to be the first to see new items come in, and every once in awhile, a misdelivered item means I get free snacks. :)

Worrying

that summer is going to go by too fast. It always does, but with how eventful this year has already been and is promising to continue to be (in good ways as well as bad) it almost feels like being trapped in a tornado that just keeps picking up speed. I want to have space to enjoy the summer, to reflect on everything we’ve been through, and to look forward to what’s to come, but it often seems like there is just not a moment to spare.

Laughing

too little? This one has had me stumped. My cats always make me laugh, and so does watching the birds in the front garden frolicking over the birdbath, but laughter has not been a main element of my life in the last few weeks. That seems sad.

Dreaming

very vividly, thanks hormones.

Doing

lots of squats and stretches for my lower back. I heard squats are good for preparing for labor, so I’ve been adding them in various forms to all my workouts and day-to-day activities. The low-back ache from losing so much core stability has me trying every stretch in the book for relief.

Listening

to an abnormally high amount of news commentary, for me. For a long time I was pretty much a news avoider, but I started on a quest to be better informed a couple years ago, with a special focus on hearing voices from the opposite “side” from myself. I suppose this plays back into my security in knowledge; I wanted to discover which perspectives truly made sense, and know why they made sense. Interestingly, this journey has brought me back to many of the same standpoints I started from, but now I feel a little more firm on why I stand where I do. I’m trying to maintain an open mind, open ears, and open heart—because it’s hard to find that anywhere in the current cultural and political climate—while holding fast to what I know is true, right, and good.

Planning

a kitchen remodel and a baby room—who thought doing both of those at the same time was a good idea, anyway?! Thankfully Sam is doing 99% of the logistics and labor the kitchen will demand, so I have at least some brain space free to think about the fact that we are adding a person to our house in September.

Fearing

what it will be like to transition from a household of two to three, to be honest. Having a child is a weird paradox: Everyone is excited and happy for you, but they’re also the very same people who have made offhand comments over the years about how hard it is to be a parent and how having kids restricts you from doing a lot of your usual activities. It’s a bit like reliving the days before I got married, when so many people stated or implied that I was too young to tie myself down, and was throwing away my life. For someone who doesn’t need a lot of help to overthink things, this can really send me into a tailspin of fear. Is this going to be okay? Can I do it? Will I still be myself, or will I turn into someone I don’t recognize? Will people still want to do things with me? Will I have support, or are Sam and I in this alone? How in the world does one take on the enormous task of raising a person from newborn to adulthood, anyway? In fact, how does the human race still exist? (I realize these questions are progressively more dramatic and absurd—but that’s what I mean by a tailspin.)

Praying

for peace, wisdom, and the presence of God. My path over the last 8-10 years has involved many twists and turns, some of them incredible blessings and some of them terrible heartbreaks, and He has been faithful. So I am trying to keep my eyes set on Him and follow His lead, one step at a time.

these are the days: march

I have three or four half-written blog posts drafted in the queue, but nothing I have to say seems meaningful enough to add to the media din that has only grown louder as the world draws itself inward. Thoughts on what it actually means to be the Church in a time when we can no longer substitute “going to church,” thoughts on how all I want is to write honestly but I hesitate to do so now that honesty feels like a currency, thoughts on whether or not there is a place for someone like me (by that, I mean a female Bible scholar who has been called to teach people how to study the Bible) in the Church at all… they’re all in there, waiting to be given voice lest they make my brain explode, but for whatever reason it doesn’t feel safe out here for them yet.

So these are the days of jotting down just enough notes to keep the lid on while I wait for the day that I’m brave enough to pour out. I remind myself that this website is mine to invite others into, and they may accept or decline as they see fit. I remind myself that I’m not being asked to write the inerrant Word of God, so I don’t have to say everything just right, or even be completely right—the grace I feel burdened to show others is abundant enough to cover me, too. I remind myself that there must be other people out there who are tired of hearing the same old Christianese teaching the same tired platitudes, and that I can’t possibly be the only one craving something a little more honest, more Biblical, less pristine. I can’t possibly be the only one with complicated or uncomfortable questions to ask—and I remember that Jesus Himself showed us pretty clearly just how much the devout can benefit from a healthy dose of discomfort.

For now, these are still days of quiet—quieter than I ever envisioned when I wrote my last post. The only thing breaking up my days and weeks is my work schedule, the only thing that holds a semblance of normal. Even that is abbreviated and interrupted by a week of being sick at home, feeling more than usual the pressure to keep my germs to myself, letting Bible180 be my church service and Zephaniah be my preacher and a simple “Let’s all agree to pray together in spirit at 2pm today” be my community.

Some of the daffodils have bloomed. I cut the last of the hyacinths for one more bouquet. Between rain showers I take quick walks through the garden to see what else is coming alive to prove that time really isn’t at a standstill, and that God really isn’t checked out of this mess. It is spring, and He is here.

Suggested Thinking

• Matthew 23

• Zephaniah