Posts Tagged ‘pregnancy’
Fighting For Our Lives
“I am very frustrated. I don’t understand why you can’t just be confident in our care!” My perinatal specialist yelled these words to me when I was around 24 weeks pregnant with quadruplets. Why? Because I was asking her questions about what my children’s birth might look like. Up to this point, no one had…
Read MoreComplicated Joy
For all of the beauty found in celebrating the liturgical year, I find that marking milestones by these holy seasons and rituals has a tendency to make whatever experience that much more intense and emotional for me. Pregnancy announcements during Advent—potent. Witnessing conversion and Baptism at Easter Vigil—stick a fork in me. Gifts of selflessness…
Read MoreAs A Mother Comforts Her Child
I was not excited when I found out I was pregnant. In fact, I remember staring at the five pregnancy tests in our tiny apartment in Texas trying very unsuccessfully to not fall in a panic attack. All I could think as I saw that plus sign in front of me was, “I can’t do…
Read MoreWhen You Do Not Want To Give Thanks
It’s been a hard month, hasn’t it? In our small corner, it was the shock of twins. The exhaustion of early pregnancy. The darkness of morning sickness. And the upheaving of expectations. But in the wider world, it was Paris and Beirut and Syria and so many million more places where the earth is broken and…
Read Morein which we are all (begrudgingly) images of God
I do not like the experience of pregnancy. There. I said it. I like the fact of being pregnant. I love the gift of life, the sheer blessedness of getting to bring a child into this world. I love the answer to prayer brought by pregnancy after infertility and miscarriage, the undeserved grace that this…
Read More40 weeks: God’s womb & mine
The baby is nine and a half months old. I could say I don’t know where the time flew, but I do. Newborn blur, life with two littles, the months when he stopped sleeping, the months when we started moving. Since his arrival on this spinning planet, we’ve been whirling fast. But the nine month…
Read Moreseasons of infertility, years later
“Oh, honey!” She shrieked as she came running towards us, nightgown flapping. “Look at you!” I smiled, the meager smile of a large pregnant woman, bracing herself to hear the usual round of “you’re due when?!” or “you’re sure it’s not twins?” Be nice, I admonished myself. She’s a sweet neighbor. Let the comments be. But…
Read MorePrayers for Childbirth: Spirit as Intercessor and Groaner
The Holy Spirit can be hard to pin down. God’s presence with us, everywhere and always, sure. But many of us wonder what that means, what that looks like. Flames of fire? Speaking in tongues? Here’s what Scripture has to say, which speaks to the Spirit’s presence during labor: Brothers and sisters: The Spirit comes…
Read Moreprayers for anxiety in pregnancy
One of the best things about blogging is seeing what brings perfect strangers to your writing. Everyday I can see the list of searches that bring people here. What brings more visitors here than anything else? Prayers for pregnancy. Over time many of these searches were phrased in ways that broke my heart, that found me wondering about the back stories, even…
Read Moregreat expectations
I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Halfway through this pregnancy, I’m supposed to be feeling good. The morning sickness should have subsided, the second trimester energies should have kicked in. Right now is supposed to be the glowing part of pregnancy. Instead I find myself every week, more mornings than I care to admit,…
Read MoreThis is my body. Given up for you.
The bodiliness of parenting young children. The meaning of the words from the Eucharistic prayer—“This is my body, given up for you”—have taken on a profoundly different meaning after the experiences of bearing, birthing, and nursing a child. I remember being overwhelmed with emotion (and postpartum hormones, no doubt) at the first few Masses I went…
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