3 Days Until Due Date

Reflection:

This morning I woke up reflecting on how different the few months before and following Henry’s birth were from this birth story so far.

Many of my symptoms and memories symptoms were/ are overshadowed by the deep grief I was in due to the sudden death of my brother.  Interestingly enough, you know how the smell of pavement in the heat can bring you back to a street in St. Louis when you were 12 – the subconscious physical memory running so deep that it unconsciously brings you to the same place?  That’s what this pregnancy has done with the death of my brother.  Especially in the beginning it was like transporting my mind back to the early stages of grief.  For the most part over the last months it has only been in my sleep and my mind has been flooded with memories of him during the day which could happen on a regular basis anyway. 

So back to the comparison.    This morning I suddenly remembered how tired I was the last few months of Henry’s pregnancy.   Our lives seemed to be in a pressure cooker from the death of my brother until a few months after Henry was born (at least).  We had been attempting to sell our business from 6 months pregnant until 9 months pregnant through a confidential listing with a new commercial broker.  I was doing my normal share of our business plus trying to help sell our business and the broker was so green I ended up doing a big part of the work.  At the end of those three months I was emotionally hanging on by a thread or maybe I wasn’t even hanging on anymore.  I was cooked. 

I felt like God was telling me/us if we believed it was His plan to sell our business we needed to trust Him for the consequences with our customers etc for going public.  It wasn’t any easy decision to swallow but made much easier by the tired, raw, pregnant state I was in. 

I had started a business networking group with one of my friends and it had become a very successful and thriving group in the area.  We had a meeting the day before we listed the business publically through a new experienced broker, and I felt the nudging of God to tell the business women in our group.  That was major for me since I have always been the type to keep really quiet about major decisions until after I know the result.  So I told them.  And a miracle happened.  One of the women approached me and told me she might be interested in buying it.  Now, I had some serious doubts about her level of seriousness.  I met with her days or weeks before my due date.  As a courtesy in my mind.  I was tired.  I was emotionally done.  I was very pregnant.  I laid it all out on the table – the good and the bad about the business.  I figured that would be our last meeting or discussion.

God had other plans.  So after the birth of our son – immediately after, Dave took on the full share of running the business, I continued on with the selling of our house and business.  The days were long days at home with Henry and Dave had long days at our business.  The cloth diaper business (woman from networking group) started negotiations to purchase our business and we were in shock at what God was doing in the midst of a mountain of pressure.  The pressure continued with summer approaching (our lowest time for funds and most amount of work with least amount of help), a miracle sale of our house, and major decisions that were ahead.  All with a new precious life at home.  Times were different.  We were both tired from having an infant and so many other things. 

God sent a doctor and his wife from PA to purchase our house.  They looked at 28 houses and narrowed it down to ours and another after the second showing.  God impressed on my heart I was going to meet the wife the day she was making the decision.  I did.  On the street of our town.  She chased me down.  We negotiated the contract.  Another miracle. 

We closed on our business and home within 10 days of each other when Henry was three months old.  Talk about crazy times navigating new parenthood, SBA loans, moving and major career changes for David and me.  Pressure was our middle name. 

We knew we would be moving back to Maryland but I couldn’t emotionally handle another change at that time.  So we lived in a temporary rental, David trained the new owners and everything about our life was up in the air.  Another difference about this birth story so far. 

Those were the days of Henry’s pregnancy and first few months of his life.

Our lives are so different now.  Praise God for different seasons and His faithfulness in them. 

I am so thankful for my family, friends, my church and my home.  It’s nice to have so many friends close by with small children – something I was missing in Maine.  I am so thankful for the Body of Christ in Baltimore.  Though I am tired, I am spiritually refreshed.  Though exhaustion is my constant companion, we are not in a season of the unknown (we always are but you know what I mean). 

It doesn’t make this birth story better.  Just different.  Seeing God’s hand in another way in our lives and getting to share it with our most precious son Henry and soon to be Hudson. 

Grateful ♥.