Fall dreaming...

I love the way the light hits the kitchen in the morning this time of year, as summer is winding down and the first hint of fall is evidenced only by the sun's position in the sky.  August is almost over, and for those of us in this sweltering climate, that means fall-dreaming.   In fact, I've heard there's a "cold front" coming in this week, and temps might drop into the 90s!  That means we can actually be outside again.

Things I’m looking forward to this fall…

• Mums!  In all different colors, popping up around the neighborhood.
• Taking Luci Belle for walks in her stroller, narrating for her all the things going on, like leaves crunching against the sidewalk, a dog barking in someone’s front yard, or the smell of a fall cookout.  I gave myself the full 6 weeks recovery time after delivery, and now I’m antsy to be active again.
• Going to Aspen, Colorado with Steven’s family in October!  This is the incredible resort where we're staying.  It will be mildly warm during the day and chilly enough for fires at night!  And unlike our last trip to Lake Tahoe, this time I won't be pregnant, so I can actually hike (with Luci Belle in the Moby wrap of course).
• Making delicious soups in the Vitamix.  There is also an Avocado Bread recipe I can't wait to try!
  
  homemade carrot ginger soup last fall
• Going to the SMU campus, laying on a blanket in the thick squishy grass under a Pin Oak tree, having a picnic with the sun low in the sky.
• Drinking hot beverages or this amazing Stellar Organics Sulfite-free wine with friends, all gathered around the enormous farm table that Steven built for our dining room from salvaged barn wood.
• Saturdays at Urban Acres, where our community gathers to enjoy delicious food and where we can feature the harvest of local farms like our friends at Eden Creek.
• Using my Vanilla Chai lotion again - it just smells like fall.
• The possibility of getting these adorable TOMS.
• Watching past episodes of Jamie At Home, especially the ones where he cooks in his wood fire oven in the backyard!  Can I have his rustic kitchen, please?  Thanks.

What are you looking forward to this fall?

A new mom's survival kit.

With the long days and nights of new motherhood, sometimes the smallest luxuries make the biggest difference in your day.  Here are a few of mine right now...

1) Enfusia tea by NutriHarmony is an organic loose-leaf tea made with maté and three other herbs, and it is the sweet nectar of heaven.  The maté gives you a boost without caffeine, so you never have a crash.  I have sworn by this stuff for several years now and must have it every morning!  It's helped a lot of people I know kick their coffee addiction as well.  Here's how I like my Enfusia: brew it hot, add 1-2 tbs. coconut milk, Vanilla Creme stevia, and cinnamon, and it's like a creamy hot latté.  God bless it.

2) Teeccino - This is another coffee alternative I was introduced to recently at our homeopath's office.  It's an herbal coffee beverage with no caffeine and no acidity.  To me, it tastes like a cross between coffee and hot chocolate, and who doesn't love that, right?  The Vanilla Nut flavor is delicious. They even have a Pumpkin Spice flavor for fall!

One of the best ways to drink Teeccino is iced, with milk or coconut milk added - I promise, you won't even be able to tell it's not coffee.

3) Vibranz Peach-Passionfruit Kombucha - This is a new drink I tried yesterday that we've started carrying at our farm store.  It was fizzy, fruity, and refreshing.  Kombucha is a raw probiotic drink with amazing health benefits, and it made me feel like a million bucks.

* * *

And now, a few cosmetic items I've been enjoying lately.  Since I've had a baby, I've found that it really makes a difference when I snag a few minutes to moisturize my face and put on a little makeup.  Thankfully, Luci Belle is in stage where she likes to lay on the bed and kick her hands and legs while staring at the ceiling fan, so I have a few hands-free minutes if I work quickly!

1) Burt's Bees Naturally Ageless Line Diminishing Day Lotion - A pretty big mouthful for a simple little moisturizer that smells really great, too.  I didn't realize that nursing would dry out my skin so badly, because the baby takes every ounce of moisture she needs from my body.  My skin was practically cracking until I tried this lotion, which I confess I bought because it was advertised on the back of Country Living.  Sucker.  But my skin now feels like it has taken a good, long drink, and the moisture lasts all throughout the day rather than drying out by evening. 

2) mark Glodacious Illuminating Powder in Shimmied Up - I'm pretty sure the lack of sleep from new mommyhood has left me with permanent dark circles under my eyes.  This wonderful powder takes away some of the haggard-ness and gives me a little glow.  So at least I can have the appearance of getting sleep even if I'm not!  I brush it on my cheeks, nose, and forehead after putting on concealer.  It must work, because at my postpartum appointment today, two of the midwives said I looked well rested - HA!

3) Naturtint - You've heard me sing its praises before, and now I'm even more sold than ever on this amazing herbal haircolor.  I'm now a 3N girl: Dark Chestnut Brown.  After starting out with 5N Light Chestnut Brown, I realized the color does fade a lot after you first dye it, and the dark chestnut is much closer to my natural color.  It's so rich and multi-dimensional and takes away all the gray. 

The other day, I was on the verge of a meltdown from lack of sleep, and my graying roots were just too much.  Then my dear friend Linda offered to come over and watch Luci Belle while I dyed my hair.  It may sound shallow, but having freshly dyed hair changed my whole demeanor.  I guess that's just what a girl needs sometimes!

Me: fresh haircut and freshly dyed 3N. Luci Belle: indulging Mommy with yet another photo.

New mom or not, what are some of your "survival items" right now?

Shade tree.

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature....

I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles." ~ Anne Frank

It's still 107 degrees and scorching here, but yesterday, just down the street - literally 5 houses down from us - I saw a beautiful old shade tree that I'd never noticed before. Perhaps we notice these things sometimes only out of necessity, as I've been walking my daughter up and down, up and down the sidewalk in the sweltering heat to help her fall asleep for her naps.  She's a Texas girl who loves being warm, and being outside immediately calms her. 

Yesterday afternoon as I paced the sidewalk once again with Luci Belle perched on my shoulder in her white hat, I noticed The Shade Tree at the end of the sidewalk and went towards it, to stand beneath it.   A breeze instantly enveloped us and the air felt ten degrees cooler.  I looked up, deep into its branches, and swayed my baby girl back and forth as we both enjoyed its covering.

A simple moment, a simple pleasure in life - a shade tree that changed the outlook of my entire afternoon. 

One month.

To my darling Luci Belle,

Today is your one-month birthday. One month ago today, I didn’t yet understand the fierceness of a mother’s love. And then, within the first minute of your life, it took me completely off-guard. It’s so different than the love I have for anyone else in this world. This love is one that feels a little risky, more dangerous. It feels like I’ve now opened up my heart and allowed it to walk around outside my body, in your body. It is a little bit scary because now I love someone who is definitely going to leave one day, to at some point break my heart, to perhaps move halfway across the world after she graduates high school. And I’m going to have to let it happen, to let you make your own decisions. Loving you, Luci Belle, is just scratching the surface of understanding God’s love for me. Your utter dependence on me for food, sleep, security, warmth, is only a shadow of how much I need God everyday, often without realizing it.

Some of the things you absolutely love right now: flailing and waving your arms like you’re conducting a symphony, and pumping your left leg over and over like you’re trying to jumpstart a motorcycle. After all the effort I put into decorating your nursery, I figured it was mainly just for me to selfishly enjoy and that you wouldn’t even notice. But instead, whenever we bring you into your room, you immediately quiet down and look around in wonder, as if you’re taking in all the soothing sights, textures, and colors. This makes me so happy. It’s amazing to see you begin to discover all the beautiful things in this world.

You also love it when Daddy swaddles you in your favorite blanket and gently bounces you until you fall asleep. You love Norah Jones, Rosie Thomas and Jason Mraz as background music, the sound of ocean waves, and when I swish my hair gently over your face until you almost-giggle. We’ve only heard your real-giggle twice, and it was pretty much the sweetest sound in the world.

One of my favorite things is to look down at you on my chest and see you absolutely beaming with a huge grin as you sleep. What could you possibly be dreaming about that is that wonderful? Milk, milk, and more milk? And then there’s your “lounging pose” when I hold you in the crook of my arm and you rest one hand nonchalantly against your cheek as we walk around the house together. Sometimes when I’m holding you, you’ll fix your eyes on something invisible just past my face or shoulder, and you smile so big, and I say to your Daddy, “I think she sees angels.”

In the last month, my tummy went from a huge hardened watermelon to a mushy gelatinous pooch. I’ve probably had 24 hours of sleep total and my fair share of meltdowns. But that’s okay, because I will never, ever get back the teeny-tiny you that was put on my chest in the operating room, as your just-born eyes tried to focus and squinted from the bright lights. I know that in the grand scheme of things, one month of life isn’t very long. But for me, this is the month that my life changed, both for the difficulty and wonderfulness of it.

Snapshots of my day.

"The sacred mixes with the daily when you have a conversation with someone you love, or when you read a great book, or when you do something courageous.  It's still just a normal day, but there's something bigger, something more compelling going on, too.  One look at a baby's fingers and you just know that those little bundles of flesh and tiny bones are more sacred, more spiritual, than any thought or idea or theology could ever be.  There are glimpses and whispers of the divine all through the daily, if we let ourselves look again, if we let ourselves believe that the world around us is threaded through with divinity."  ~ Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

My days sure look quite different now...

A delicious smoothie that my amazing husband made in the Vitamix and delivered to me in the bedroom this morning

Precious baby feet

The co-sleeper bassinet has now become my end table...

My view for many, many hours a day...

A most treasured moment

In one of the photos, you'll see Shauna Niequist's newest book, Bittersweet, which I'm currently reading. I'm excited to post my review of the book and a giveaway for my lovely blog readers on September 29th!

Luci Belle's birth story - part 2.

See Part 1.

A Change in Plans
Allen Presbyterian Hospital is a "baby-friendly" hospital which means they encourage methods that a lot of the bigger, more "corporate" hospitals don't - such as tools to help you labor naturally with birthing balls and birthing bars attached to the bed, letting your baby "room in" with you rather than in the nursery, and providing amazing help with breastfeeding rather than peddling pacifiers and bottles.  So we realized soon after we arrived there that we were in good hands with Dr. Pierce and his staff, although this could not be further from our original plan.

Once we arrived at the hospital, I remember things in flashes - having a contraction in the elevator and scaring a little boy who was standing next to me, being hooked up to all kinds of machines and having to sign hospital admittance papers with a shaky hand.  Although I had never wanted drugs during our baby's birth, my body just wasn't producing enough pitocin on its own.  So the plan was to provide me the absolute minimum possible dose of pitocin through an IV - just enough to get labor going and to get me fully dilated.  The nurse left Steven and I in the quiet labor room with only the sound of the heartbeat monitors.   The problem with synthetic pitocin, however, is that it makes the contractions much worse.

We kept going for about another hour, at the end of which I felt myself starting to break.  I could no longer breathe calmly through the contractions and began to cry and then totally lose composure at the peak of each one.  I finally looked my husband in the eye and in one of the most vulnerable moments of my life said, "Babe, I can't do this anymore.  I NEED HELP NOW."

I felt so at the end of my rope, so tired.  So ready to not be pregnant anymore and to meet our baby.

"I did my best," I said.  "I tried to be brave..."  

And then, my sweet husband who had been fighting alongside me said, "You were so, SO brave.  I am so proud of you.  We will get the nurse in here and see what we can do about the pain.  It's okay..."

We both cried and held each other as we waited for nurse Elizabeth.  Then, I did something I never thought I'd do - I asked for an epidural.  I'm pretty sure I told the anesthesiologist I loved him before he left the room and within minutes, I felt like I was floating on clouds of chocolate.  Once I had the epidural, they increased the pitocin hoping that I would dilate more over the next few hours and have some time to rest before pushing.

While I rested, Steven left with his parents to grab a quick meal.  In the meantime, the amazing Dr. Pierce entered the room and explained to me that he wanted me to have the birth I desired, but he was getting concerned about how long I'd been in labor with my water broken.  He said he'd give me until 7:30pm that night and that he would love nothing more than if I would be dilated past 5 cm at that point. But if I still hadn't progressed even on the pitocin, I would have to have a c-section.

It all seemed so surreal - a C-SECTION?  It wasn't even on my radar, and here I was, just a few hours away from the possibility of major surgery.  But as Steven and I let it all soak in, we agreed that ultimately, we wanted to do the safest thing for our girl.  I had to totally surrender my expectations of how the birth had been painted in my mind for the last ten months and let the best plan happen.

Well, 7:30pm finally came, and Dr. Pierce checked me.  And unbelievably, I was still at 5 cm.

Meeting Our Girl
Everything about the surgery is so vivid in my mind.  From the bright fluorescent lights to the masked faces of Dr. Pierce, Dr. Joseph, and our sweet nurse Joy standing over me, all in a state of quiet, controlled hurriedness.  The anesthesiologist said, "We're going to move you to the operating table now" and I oddly couldn't even feel my legs touching the table.  The sensation of numbness crept up my chest, and my entire body was shaking uncontrollably, yet I was acutely aware of what was going on.  I saw Steven next to me in a hat and mask and surgical scrubs with a look of nervous excitement in his eyes.

Through chattering teeth I asked, "When is it going to start?"  And Dr. Pierce told me they had already begun!  Then, lots of tugging on my abdomen.  Dr. Pierce asked Steven if he wanted to take a peek on the other side of the curtain to get an "anatomy lesson" as he viewed all of my exposed organs.  Steven said they reached in and pulled out our daughter like a rabbit out of a magician's hat.

And then, finally...a healthy, robust cry!

After ten months of waiting, Luci Isabelle entered our lives just eight minutes after we entered the operating room.  The first time I saw her face is when I turned my head to the left and saw the nurses quickly wiping off the blood and fluids and wrapping her in a blanket.  I cried out, "There she is!  There she is!" and soaked in every sight - her arms waving wildly, her long legs, her wet, curly black hair, her Asian eyes and huge Piccione mouth.  Our daughter!

About a minute after she was born, she was on my chest skin-to-skin, just as they had promised.  She was still crying until I put my arms around her and said, "Hello, my little darling," and she immediately stopped crying, turned her head, and looked at her mama.

As I held her, they stitched me up, and Steven went out to the waiting room to announce the birth and her name to both sets of grandparents.  

She nursed within an hour of being born, and it was beautiful.

The rest of our stay at the hospital was like a mini-vacation - well, minus the fact that I couldn't walk or move for a few days and was pretty much high on Vicodin.  But we were basically the only ones on the postpartum floor and got personal attention from all the wonderful nurses who served us hand-and-foot, laughed with us, and took care of our family and friends who visited.  We were free to just enjoy our daughter, to gaze at this vulnerable being whose life had now been entrusted to us.

Of one thing I am sure - I was always meant to be a mother.  How very grateful I am to be the mother of Luci Belle!

One last thing I wanted to share...the special meaning behind her name.

Luci means "light."  I have prayed this entire pregnancy that our daughter's life would be full of joy and happiness and that she would be one who bears the light of Christ to everyone she meets.  She is also named in honor of my dear Aunt Lucille who passed away last September just a few weeks before she was conceived.  In my last conversation with Aunt Lucille, I told her we were trying to have a baby, and she laughed and was so happy.  Then, I had a dream about Aunt Lucille a few days before we found out we were having a girl.  And we knew then, if we had a girl, that we would name her Luci.

Isabelle means "God's promise."  I can think of no better phrase to describe what our marriage has been thus far.  It began with a rainbow on our wedding day, and over the last five years, God has kept His promise that if we would trust Him, He would take care of us.  Through all kinds of difficulties that should have ruined us, instead we are stronger, with more joy and more grace.  We have been able to build an incredible love together, one that we can now welcome our little daughter into.

Belle means "beautiful," and we actually referred to her as "Belle" to each other my entire pregnancy and were planning on calling her that.  But when she came out, she just looked like a Luci!  So we mostly call her Luci Belle.

Here are some favorite photos from her first few weeks of life...

Luci Belle's birth story - part 1.

 She loves fluffy blankets, her Little Lamb bouncer seat, and the music of Rosie Thomas.  While she is sleeping, I gaze at her little lips shaped like a bow and her subtle Asian eyes and cannot believe our sweet daughter has only been here for a little over two weeks.

Today, I sit here thankful for the people who told me, "Create your birth plan, but then be prepared to hold it loosely" because Luci Belle's birth didn't quite go as expected.  Even before I became pregnant, I had always hoped to have a natural birth at a birthing center.  So I was glad to find the Allen Birthing Center and their amazing team of nurse-midwives who deliver babies in a cozy yellow Victorian house just north of Dallas.  I looked forward to every one of my prenatal appointments, soaking up the peaceful vibe in that house where natural birth is regarded as totally normal and something to be respected, enjoyed, and embraced.  But then on Thursday, July 8th...

Early Labor
My labor began around 8am when I awoke, went to the bathroom, and immediately afterwards, felt like I had wet my pants.  That is when my water broke, not as a gush but as a slow leak that went all throughout the day.  I called the birthing center, and they told me to come in that afternoon to be checked.  I was having some contractions, just kind of crampy ones in my lower abdomen.  When I was checked that afternoon, I was 2 cm dilated and almost 100% effaced.  The plan was to go back to the birthing center that night at 10pm unless I went into full-blown labor before that.  Amy, the midwife on duty, explained that I would need to take an antibiotic that evening since my water had already broken and they wanted to prevent any chance of infection until the baby was born.  Most hospitals and birthing centers won't let you go longer than 24 hours with your water broken before delivering a baby, but my midwives were willing to let me go longer if I had the antibiotic.

That night at 10pm, we went to the birthing center for the IV antibiotic, and I was having much stronger contractions but could still easily have a conversation through them.  The plan from there was for us to come back to the birthing center at 7am the next morning - Friday, July 9th - for another dose of antibiotics unless things started to progress in the middle of the night.

Soon after we returned home late that night, Steven and I went to bed to try to get some rest, but rest I did not get...for the next few hours, the contractions picked up to the point that I was having to concentrate and breathe through them.  They were 40 seconds to a minute long, but the timing was erratic - some were 4 minutes apart, then 6 minutes apart, then 3 minutes apart, totally unpredictable.  But by 2:30am, I was feeling very uncomfortable.  We excitedly and anxiously made sure all our bags were packed and piled in the car, deciding to head to the birth center in the middle of the night rather than wait to drive in the morning commuter traffic. {Contractions in the car in Dallas rush hour?  Uh, no thanks.}

When we arrived at the birth center around 3am on the 9th, midwife Amy let us get settled into the peaceful birthing bedroom with the 4-poster bed.  Steven and I got under the covers, and he held me while I continued breathing through the contractions.

This is where things start to get a little blurry in my mind...

Fighting For It
I know at some point, daylight came, and the new midwife on duty, Kathleen, gave me another round of antibiotics.  She reminded me we were past 24 hours now since my water had broken but encouraged me that it was totally possible to have this baby by the afternoon.  She promised to use every natural method she could to move things along and help my body open up. However, she was honest with us and let us know that if I wasn't ready to push by the afternoon, we would have to do a hospital transfer.  It would then be about 30 hours since my water had broken.

I vaguely remember drinking castor oil mixed in raspberry leaf tea, taking all kinds of herbal pills, walking 'round and 'round the block with my eyes closed as I gripped Steven's shoulders through each contraction.  I heard his voice in the background as he called close friends asking them to pray that my body would open up so we wouldn't have to go to the hospital.  I remember walking up and down the grand staircase inside the birth center, working through contractions on the birthing ball and then on the bed on my hands and knees, and running to the bathroom to throw up.  I remember being checked and still being only at 2/3cm and asking Kathleen, "If I make it to 5 cm, can I get in the birthing tub?"  She said yes, and the thought of floating in that warm water inspired me to keep going.  At some point, I finally made it to 5 cm and got in the tub. 

But what I remember most is the worship, the love, the kindness in the room.  All throughout the day, my husband fought alongside me, whispered in my ear, "You can do this...you are a strong woman...," held me tightly as we listened to worship music and marveled at the strength with which my body was trying to birth this baby. I remember the song "Lead of Love" by Caedmon's Call being played and beginning to weep as scenes from my life over the last 10+ years passed before me, culminating in this wonderful day. "I just feel so happy," I said to Steven, as he hugged me tighter through the pain. Pain cleanses you, strips you.  It forces out any unsurfaced fears and also makes the joy that much richer.

There were so many beautiful moments, and we experienced them together, quietly and reverently in that dark bedroom as midwife Kathleen sat in the wings respectfully with her head bowed, letting us work through it together.

In the end though, my body just would not open up.  Just days before my labor began, apparently our baby had somehow turned sunny-side-up which was giving me very painful "back labor."  It brought new meaning to one of my favorite scenes in the movie Baby Mama when Amy Poehler's character is being wheeled into the hospital yelling, "It feels like I'm sh*tting a knife!"  The back labor, along with the baby's head being slightly tilted rather than straight down, is probably what was making me not progress.  After being in the birthing tub for at least an hour, Kathleen checked me again and...I was still only 5cm.  I later learned that when she went downstairs to call the doctor and tell him we were coming to the hospital, she cried.  She so wanted us to be able to have our natural birth.

I'll admit, Steven and I were pretty deflated when we got in the car to transfer to the hospital, Allen Presbyterian, which was just a few minutes away.  How would they treat us?  Would they respect our desires to have as natural of an experience as possible? 

See Part 2.

Welcome to the world, Luci Isabelle Bailey!

We would like to introduce you to our precious little daughter who entered the world on July 9th at 8:08pm! 

"I think babies really do make you believe in God.  They make you believe in God because there's something just beyond understanding about their freshness and fragility and their smell and their toes.  When they take their first breaths, and when they land, floppy and slippery, on your chest under the bright overhead light in an otherwise dim delivery room, when you watch their tiny sleeping selves, when you hear their thin wild animal cries, you know, you just know in your guts that God is real, and that babies have been with him more recently, have come more directly from him than our worn-out old selves have." ~ Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

More details to come...

Our little girl's room.

The nursery is ready!

It's been so incredibly fun expressing my creativity in this way.  Thanks to the help of several friends and family members, it's come together just as I had imagined.  So many of the things in her room were gifts or passed down from generation to generation, and I love that.

We still don't have the crib, but she'll be sleeping in this co-sleeper next to our bed for awhile anyway.  In the meantime I'm hoping to find one used on Craigslist.

So without further ado, here is a little tour.

When you open the door, this is the view in front of you and to the right.  First, you'll see the loveseat we brought in from the living room, and hanging above it, our homemade "lamp" from the parasol I carried in Suz's wedding that my husband rigged to hang from the ceiling.  The lovely pillows were handmade by my fellow pregnant friend, Bre.  On the floor is my orange canvas diaper bag, packed and ready to go!  The two-toned yellow rug was a great find on Overstock.com.

The front sides of the pillows are made from Anna Maria Horner's "Drawing Room" fabric...

Bre then added orange and pink pom-pom edging from JoAnn's and different fabrics on the back from Amy Butler and Heather Bailey.

To the left of the love seat is a rustic side table holding a vase of branches that was truly a collaborative effort...the branches are from my friend Autumn's wedding, and they are adorned with some paper birds and owls from another friend Robyn's wedding, as well as some birds from one of my baby showers.  They have beautiful blessings written on the back that I'm sure I'll need for encouragement during some late nights! 

To the right of the loveseat, I created a wall collage with a mix of meaningful photos and illustrations, including two bird drawings that Steven did as a child.  When his mom gave them to me, I knew they'd be perfect to frame in the room!

One hook holds a soft bin from IKEA filled with supplies I might need while nursing, and the other is perfect for displaying cute outfits, like this tiny pink dress...

On the floor, "Sophie La Girafe" and her friends sit in a soft, colorful bin from The Container Store.

Both of the dressers in the room were from my brother's old baby furniture.  Here's one holding family photos and a cute owl bank from Etsy.  I spraypainted the original drawer pulls white and alternated them with yellow knobs from a salvage store.

Next comes the closet which, thanks to many generous gifts and hand-me-downs from friends, is stocked!  Some of the most precious items are my very own baby dresses that my mom has saved all these years.

On one side of the door, this IKEA cabinet is perfect for storing odds 'n ends, wonderful childrens' books, and showcasing Steven's baby shoes.  Most of the books are lovingly worn, because they are the exact ones my mother read to me - The Llama's Pajamas, Sammy the Seal, and Corderoy, to name a few.

On the other side of the door is this dresser which folds out into a changing table. The "It Is Going To Be OK" illustration is a reminder I'll probably need quite a bit in this particular location!

Now, for the last wall.  Last night, our dear friends Justin & Autumn decided to come over and give a wonderful gift - painting a mural, just like the wall decal I liked from Etsy.  Our version is a lot more wispy and soft, and I love how it turned out!   The crib will eventually go on this wall.

Inside that bassinet, which my brother used for all three of his children, is her first stuffed animal - a soft little lamb from my dad.  It's from Williamsburg, VA, which was our family vacation spot for eleven years. The lamb rests against a crocheted pillow that was mine as a baby.

And finally, just for fun, here's the room by night.  I think the parasol makes a very enchanting lamp, don't you?  It's so peaceful that Steven and I like to come in here and sit and wonder what it'll be like to hold our baby girl in a very short time...

Now, all we need is HER!

A healing experience.

I abused it, I hated it, I criticized it, I tried to make it shrink and look better by adorning it with slimming clothes. I took pride in it when it was satisfyingly "small" and felt insecure about it when it was not "small enough."  I was not grateful for the body I was given. 

And then one day, it did a miraculous thing.

One day, I found out a human was being built from two cells inside this body, the very one I had mistreated and criticized and abused.  Instead of reaping what I had sown, I was given grace - the honor of being the vessel to another human life.

Perhaps I'm just hormonal, but I am moved to tears when I think about how I've been given so much more than I deserve.  I thought I would just endure pregnancy, but instead I've been enthralled by what a truly delicate and loving and humbling process it is.

 "What I didn't expect was that right from the beginning, the baby would occupy so much of my mind and spirit.  I knew it would occupy my body, but I was surprised by how deeply it took root in my thoughts and prayers and dreams.  I was never unaware of it.  I never forgot about it, never woke up surprised by my big belly.  It is much more an active thing than I thought, a thing to do, to care for, to think about.  I thought it happened to you, and then at some point a baby came and that's when the life change began. But that's not the case at all."

~ Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

Whatever happens from here, I know that this, my first pregnancy, has been a healing experience for me.  And I could not be more grateful to be the recipient of that grace.