Jenny's Blog

I got a bunch of Jack's neutral baby clothes together and got them washed, folded, and put away last night. We finally got the July schedule for the agency we're using and it looks like we'll be done with our classes on July 18th. Old Codger Fire Inspector came yesterday to tell us we need three more smoke alarms in our tiny little house. That will bring us to five smoke alarms for 1300 sq. feet. Whatever, we'll do it. Whatever it takes.

The reality is slowly starting to sink in.

There are so many things I wonder about regarding the baby and this whole experience. How will we feel the first time we see her? Will she feel like our daughter? Should she feel like our daughter? She won't legally be ours until we've had her atleast six months. There's no guarantee she'll become ours at all. What will I refer to myself as with her? Mommy? Is that a smart thing to do? I just don't know the right answers to any of these questions.

Some friends and acquaintances are expecting babies right now. Some of them, their first. From the moment they hear that little heart beat or see that baby on ultrasound, they will be in love. With every bit of knowledge they have about that baby, they will fall deeper in love. I really think we love Jack more today than on the day he was born. We didn't really know him then. He was cute and totally dependent on us for everything. We would have laid down our lives for him in an instant if we had to. I think in the beginnng, the love we feel for our kids is more primal and instinctual.

It's like they (we) are woven together in the womb and as that's happening the love between parent and child is being woven together too. I think the weaving of that love never stops. Sometimes the weaving is repair work to mend parts where the threads have pulled away. Sometimes the parent or child may get stuck weaving in the same place until the fabric in that place becomes too thick or knotted and takes some effort to find our way out of it. Sometimes the bump in those places never goes away. Sometimes there is not enough attention given to certain areas and those areas become thin and worn and can't be trusted to keep things together. There are holes. Some are big enough for others to see and some you can just feel and you hope nobody, not even the child, knows about those. The fabric of love between parent and child is beautiful, flawed, always changing, always being worked upon in some way or another.

I think the way I will begin to love this child is just very delicately. Little by little. The weaving has already begun as we begin to prepare for her. As I touch the clothes that will be hers and think about what she may look like. As we think of a name.

I'm ready to see her face. I'm ready to start getting to know her.


John 10:14
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.

1 Corinthians 13:11-13
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.