Still

It was May 2004, riding home from a trip with friends to their cabin near Minneapolis that we made the decision to start our family. Each trip to and from Minneapolis to Chicago seem the same but this one I remember so clearly. Nathan and I sat in silence most of the trip, almost surprised but what our hearts were telling us.

I think about this day as really the first day that my heart began to grow this baby but it may have been November of 1997 when Nathan and I first told each other we loved each other or March 2002 when we vowed our lives to one another. It may be May 19, 2006 when Nathan held my hand in his scrubs in the operating room, watching our embryo be injected into my uterus. It may be hours of playing with my barbies as a child, playing out their own romances and families. Our hearts have grown this baby for so long and yet, last night, as we lay together listening to Christmas music, thinking about how our world will be so drastically changing, that I felt like we really began to understand what our hearts had created so long ago.

Pregnancy is a public manifestation of this decision our hearts made years ago. And as my body changes I am reminded that this is real, not just an abstract emotion anymore. But how does this baby kicking and rolling inside of me become our daughter, a baby, a woman? How do we have so much love for this baby that we've never seen or held? What will she look like? What will her cry sound like? How will she challenge us? What gifts do Nathan and I have that we haven't shown yet? How will we change?

The cognitive and emotional connection is not always a natural process. But in moments like last night, when things just seem so raw, so clear, so scary, so peaceful . . . I thank God that the desires of our hearts have been answered. And in ways that we don't even know yet.

When we meet our baby I know that my mind will understand what my heart has known for so long, and for this I am grateful.