The Unlikely Mother

"Welcome to the planet,
welcome to existence..."

-Switchfoot, "I Dare You to Move"







So, you may have noticed that while I have mentioned on this blog that I am pregnant, I haven't spent much time posting about it. And if you were really paying attention, you might have noticed that the blog has been idle for awhile.

There are several reasons for that:

1. This baby has been one of the biggest things going on in my life lately, so he seems to be an obvious topic for conversation. But at the same time, I have felt uncertain about where the blogosphere boundaries lie and how exactly to share this journey in writing in a public forum.

Pregnancy is strange--it is at once so personal and private and close to your heart and so public and outward and on display. It's a curious thing to navigate, and as I tend to share my heart on this blog, I also endeavor to protect it and take good care of it by setting up boundaries for myself of what to share and what not to share. So, how to blog about pregnancy?

2. Now to the topic of this post, which is that for the last, oh, five, six, well, pretty much our whole married life of almost nine years, I have been pretty back-and-forth about the idea of being a mom.

This is probably due to the fact that I tend to be super excited about things in theory--at least I used to be that way, before I realized that theories are meant to become realities, and I will eventually have to deal with whatever said idea is in reality.

Like, when I was a teenager and was dreaming about going on my first date, it played like a rom com in my head, and I would daydream about the perfect boy--especially on car rides, where I could stare out the window and pretend that I was in a music video, the camera capturing my pensive, longing face while Nouveaux's "Maybe Tomorrow" played in the background.

Then, one day, a guy actually asked me on a date, and I freaked and ended up saying yes, then no.

It was becoming apparent that if my dreams became reality, then I would have to bring me along into them, and I am not a dream person, but a real person. I'm not sure who said it first, but it is true that wherever you go, there you are.

What I'm getting at is that when I was not married yet, and not in a position to think of pregnancy as an actual reality, I decided that I wanted to have two kids and adopt two kids. It sounded ideal. The plan included even numbers and the chance to do good. But when Chris and I got married and it hit me that babies were an actual possibility, I was not so set on my plan anymore.

When we were living in New York City and I was pursuing an acting career there, I was definitely in the minority among my fellow actors-in-pursuit in the fact that I was a wife. People in New York don't get married until they are 32 and have established some sort of career momentum, which is why they move to New York in the first place. Okay, maybe I am generalizing, but I once had someone in a cast realize my marital status, look me up and down, and exclaim, "You're married?! What are you, twelve?!"

I haven't had a lot of peers, and so I have struggled over the years to understand how to balance being a dedicated actress and a dedicated wife, and the thought of adding parenthood into the mix always seemed, well, difficult, if not impossible.

But I try to write this blog with my audience in mind, and with the intention to love that audience. And that audience could very well one day include the little son who is rolling around in my belly, and I want him to know that when he was in utero, we were excited to be his parents. So, again, how to talk about my doubts and anxieties in the forum of a public blog?

Well, here is where it has been so comforting to remember that God is a personal God. In fact, I think it is a crucial thing to understand--that God does not love us as just a general mass, but as minutely specific individuals. And his love for us and relationship with each of us is minutely specific. And that is the character of perfect love, I think.

In the past, I spent so much time looking to the future and worrying about this motherhood thing, and becoming sort of mentally paralyzed about it. I would look around at other people's children, and try to soak up a clear understanding of what being a mother would mean so that I could make an informed decision. It felt like getting pregnant meant taking on the assignment of some sort of universal matriarch, burdened with the task of understanding all of the children around me, being able to relate to all of them.

But when the lady at the health clinic handed me that white piece of paper with the official, typed words on it, "Pregnancy Test" and "Positive", I cried from joy. It was a new reality that was concrete and specific.

There was a baby there that had not existed at all before, and I would be its mommy. God would show me how, step by step. He would be the God He has always been to me, meeting me in real situations in real ways.

Wherever you go, there God is.

I had never been to motherhood before, so there had been no reason yet for God to go with me there.

And the thing is, it turns out that being a mother is a very specific assignment. I am this little boy's mother, no one else's. And when I look down in class and see my stomach moving, I sure do want to meet him. (He just moved! I guess we are already syncing up.)


So, welcome to the world, little boy. Your unlikely mommy is here, and she is excited to meet you. Because you--you so providentially and specifically--are her son.

And the one who decided that is Love.