pregnancy, humility, and speaking truth.

"You have quite a bump!"
"You look quite pronounced today."
"You're due anytime, right?"
"Gosh your baby is due really close to hers, but she is hardly showing."
"Are you sure there is only one in there?"

These are the things I hear when I'm in public. I have about a two inch long waist and this is my fourth pregnancy. What can i say? My body has had tons of practice at growing larger and my waist area makes no room for the baby to hide. So, out we pop. I'm six months pregnant, but I look at least 7 or 12 months so this is just something I have to deal with.

I've started to become a little sensitive. I get confused looks from everyone, like "I thought you weren't due for a while..." but, what I need to remember is this time is not about me or how I look. There is plenty of time later in my life to fret about appearance. And it's certainly not something that lasts no matter how i fret. Maybe God will change me to care even less one day, but for now, I'm stuck waddling around with honest comments floating left and right.

But, there are some aspects of honest conversations that can actually be a blessing when you are pregnant. You share this bond with other mothers. It's almost like the moment you find out you are pregnant, you receive this license card reading, "say anything you want about your body and it's functions to perfect strangers" that you hang around your neck. To illustrate this, I'll share a conversation I had with the receptionist at my dentist office yesterday morning. As I was leaving, she started asking me the usual questions, "when are you due? do you know what you're having? do you have other children? have you been very sick?" The last questions in the batch led her to share her story with me about how she was sick through her entire pregnancies (3) and she went on to tell me that with the worst one, she would throw up for the whole 40 weeks. I commented how painful throwing up was when you are huge (based on a stomach bug I had with Abigail when I was third trimester) and she agreed that it was horrible and it would even make her pee her pants every time she did it. At that point in the conversation, the phone rang and she had to get it. I closed with, "There is nothing like pregnancy to bring on the humility!"

The funny thing is that I wasn't shocked by her telling me this! I don't even know her name, but I know she endured this humiliating discomfort THREE times for the love of her children. And I'm amazed. God gives mothers this amazing willingness to sacrifice for another. We totally mess it up left and right because only he knows how to truly do this, yet He allows us to sample it, see the freedom in it and to see how unlike Him we really are in our sacrifices. And I guess, at the risk of doing the cliche' Christmas analogy, this type of thing is really what Christmas is all about. God sent his son to be WITH us and one of us... to endure humility much worse than any mother or person could know. So that we can know Him in a way that no other god can be known. I'm so glad to share in His "sufferings" (if i can call it that) and that even though I fail miserably, He loves me more than any mother or father ever could!

Even pregnancy can be used as a means to His grace! I'm thankful, or I might just sit around and keep complaining about how big everyone thinks I am! :)