where i've been....

You know when you don't exercise for awhile, and know you should return..but just can't seem to motivate yourself? You think about how hard it will be and how you won't feel the greatest and days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months and soon the most exercise you get is moving your pudgy fingers to grasp a hot dog?

Yeah, that's not me. At least, not fully.

A lot of people have asked me where I've been; am I still on #journeyto130? Have I given up? Gone back to my junk food eating ways? If I haven't lapsed back into a life of junk food eating, why haven't I been around?

I've been exercising and remaining fairly healthy, but my blogging fingers probably need a bit of a workout. The longer I've been gone, the harder it has been to come back.

There is an elephant in the room and it's hard to blog without first clearing said elephant.

The truth is, my waistline has been fairly rapidly expanding. One day, I woke up, put on a pair of shorts that fit the night before, and BAM. The button wouldn't close anymore. This isn't due to overeating, but rather because there's a baby inside of me who seems to be overtaking my body. Not gonna lie, said baby has also at times felt like a parasite. There's been a lot of puking and days with no.energy.at.all. But the ultrasound pictures tell me it's not exactly a parasite, and doctors say it's a baby, so I guess they know best.

I've struggled with how to announce this. For a few reasons, I guess.

Firstly, it's been a fairly significant part of my life and health journey, but it hasn't been my whole life. And sometimes it seems that as soon as people know, that's all they want to talk about, as if this is the only thing that is exciting/meaningful about my life. I don't like these conversations; I don't like the conversations where the only thing that is ever talked about is mom stuff. I know that there is so much I can learn from other people about mothering and mom stuff, but before I was a mom, I was a person too, with a myriad of interests and passions. Now, these days, it seems like the only thing people want to talk to me about is mom stuff. This isn't a mom blog, and isn't going to become a mom blog, so it's been hard to know what to say to all of you, my dear readers.

Secondly, the miscarriage made me really aware of how non-flippant this new adventure is. Every day, someone new on my facebook feed seems to be announcing their pregnancy. Baby bump pictures, cute proclamations to the world about a new member of a family. These bring a smile to my face, but I know that for some, constantly being inundated with announcement after announcement isn't easy. It can be a painful reminder of infertility or past miscarriages. Our miscarriage made me realize that pregnancy isn't a flippant thing. It's a joyous, yet somber reality. A friend wrote to me awhile back. She shared with me how she had had one miscarriage and another pregnancy that ended with the removal of one of her fallopian tubes. When one of her friends announced her pregnancy, my friend cried for ages, thinking about the loss they had experienced. Of course she was happy for her friend, but she felt sad, not just by the loss of her babies, but sad because she was jealous of her friend's uninhibited joy. My friend told me that she would always feel more wary now. That the uninhibited joy would be inhibited. I feel the same way. We're joyful, but not giddy like we were during our first pregnancy. We're rejoicing, but the rejoicing is more somber. The frailty of life is not something we take lightly.


***

This new adventure I'm on, it's a new journey, but it's not the only journey I'll ever take. Being a mom is a new 'identity' of sorts, but it's not my only identity, and it is by far not the most important identity in my life. There is only one identity worthy of giving my all and my best, and all the other identities (like wife, mother, friend, daughter), while inextricably linked, fall under the umbrella of this one identity. Bondservant and child of the King.

That's why I've hesitated to announce to the web this new development. Sometimes announcing new life developments on social media make them feel like the ultimate thing. Hundreds and hundreds of 'likes' for announcing a marriage or a pregnancy. But, sometimes, the most important things are the way we live our humdrum, day to day life. The most important things are sometimes those which will never get 100 likes on facebook, but are nonetheless significant and important. This pregnancy is not the only thing going on in my life. It's just one of many things and opportunities that God has given me to make an impact in this world. It is an important thing, but not the utmost thing.

Anyways, all this to say, that I've kept silent for awhile, but my life really hasn't changed all that much. I'm still exercising (even though morning sickness is making me puke my guts out every day), not eating the greatest, but getting better at the whole eating thing, and still living a relatively healthy life. I'll blog about this more in the upcoming days, but I just wanted to clear the elephant from the room first.

And, just to show you that I'm still going strong with the whole "gotta get my steak dinner" thing, here's a little video. It's just 125lbs, but I'm feeling pretty heavy these days with the whole "carrying a sweet potato inside of me" dealio.