itsawonderfilledlife

It was an exciting day in church when, one after another, three couple announced that they were each to have their first baby. The cheers rang out throughout the sanctuary. Smiles were wide and bright. A fresh sense of joy and elation surrounded the cloud of witnesses.

Each of the couples are healthy, educated adults, who will be fantastic moms.

It seems as though there is a baby boom of sorts in the circles of my daily life. There are baby bumps everywhere! It is as though pregnancy has reached epidemic proportions!

For so many of these pregnant women in and around my life, this is their first child.

When I speak with other ‘veteran’ moms about those who are expecting their first child, we share the same thought that “they have no idea how their lives are about to change.” This is the common response of those of us who are ‘veteran moms’, when we hear of a woman expecting her first child. There is such a sense of joy for those expectant moms, mixed a bit with sorrow. Not sorrow, because they are having a baby, but sorrow because they are losing an innocence that they will never have back again.

When ‘veteran’ moms hear of a first-time expecting mom, we try to flash back to the point of life that they are at. We try to remember what our book educated, dreamy-pictured, idealistic thoughts were of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. We try to recall how little we thought that our life, our marriage, out BODY would change.

But, once we pass through the veil to motherhood … there is no going back! The door is shut, locked and sealed. There is no ‘before’ life, as a mom.

Whenever I hear of a woman expecting her first child, I think how beautifully naive she is (no matter the books she reads, or the people she talks to). I think of how she is living in a state of the calm before the storm (although, for some, pregnancy is a storm in and of itself). I think about how, when she gives birth (or brings that adopted child home), she is not just laboring for the birth of her child, but she is also laboring for the birth of her new self, for she is about to be re-born, as a new creation … she is about to be … mom.

She is new because she will be different from the inside out.

She will think differently, spend her time differently, shop differently and prioritize every part of her life differently.

No longer will she be able to hear a child cry, and ignore it.

No longer will she be able to watch news stories about lost, or abused, or sick children and be able to forget it.

No longer will she hear of a lost child in a public place, and not help to find them.

No longer will she be able to not glance at a baby in a stroller, when passing by.

No longer will she see a woman will an agitated child, and not have her heart go out to the woman.

She will be changed, a new creation, like the one she holds in her womb, or her arms, a new life is about to begin.

And what an adventure-filled life it is!