a lesson

maybe she has a lesson for us, the unborn child. throughout pregnancy you are constantly being redirected to a state of unknown. there are no guarantees. so many questions that demand to be left unanswered. when was this baby made? when will it come? is it a boy or a girl? is it healthy? will it have lots of hair or none? will morning sickness ever end and when? what will i crave, if anything? will i get stretch marks? will i be small or large? will it make it through the first trimester? will labor be long or short? will i go past my due date or be early, too early? will my water break in a puddle around my feet? we don't know the answers to these questions and for the most part we can't. my midwife can not tell me definitive answers to any of them. and all through pregnancy, you slowly have to let go, and trust in God and be at peace. neither of us know really, the baby nor the mother. we are, it seems, in the hands of Someone who knows all things and yet we have to keep on every day in a sort of darkness of not knowing. that's kind of how pregnancy feels, stumbling around in blackness and trying to figure out a pattern. and its really frustrating in the times when you can't figure anything out. like at the beginning when everything makes you sick, at all times of the day, and you're looking for a trick to get you through, a way to predict what is happening to your body, and you have to resign yourself to relearning everything about yourself all over again. you aren't the same person. you don't like the same foods, the same smells, you might not desire your husband anymore, you might be in tears all the time, you could be so tired that you think you must be dying of some terminal illness. you don't know what is normal, and normal is relative, because especially if its your first, you have no idea what is normal for you. and you know what you have to do, give up and go with the flow, there is nothing else you can do. so my question is, how come after almost ten months of unknowns, can i not just let myself relax and know that when its the right time, this baby will come? i keep getting frustrated that the contractions start and then just die out. but what does it matter, at the right time, this baby will come. i am not in control right now, its not my fault, its just life. my job is to be relaxed and ready and work with my body through this unknown. and as for the baby, she has no idea what's next. but maybe it's easier when you actually are in the dark, she doesn't know any different. she isn't comparing herself to normal. she's just trying to accustom to change. all she knows is she's heading down, to where maybe she doesn't know. but she, just like me, has to make this brave journey through the unknown.