1. Water glass, for pill-taking and nighttime dry-mouth.

2. Bedside lamp, hopefully unobtrusive enough not to wake your sleeping husband when you turn it on at 3am with insomnia.

3. Prenatal vitamins that smell gross (to be taken before bed).

4. Fish oil capsules that, surprisingly, don’t smell gross (to be taken before bed and upon waking).

5. Clock to remind you that you were awake at 1am, 3:30am, 6:30am and then 9am.

6. Box of tissues. This should last you about two nights of pregnancy rhinitis. 

7. Chapstick to reapply several times during the night because your mouth feels SO DRY.

8. Tums. Take one before bed, then at 3:30 when heartburn kicks in again. 

9. Empty box of tissues you have hastily discarded from your nightstand. 

10. A giant slew of pregnancy and child-rearing books that may or may not keep you awake at night (or, if you are lucky, they may put you to sleep). 

11. A heating pad hidden under giant slew of books, to be used all night long on aching hips and upperback. 

Gigantic hair – I joked in one of my progressive pregnancy photos that my hair was also pregnant because it is so large and in charge. In fact, pregnant women DO have pregnant hair, in that their hair doesn’t fall out for 9 months (give or take). The average person loses 50 to 100 hairs a day (you’ll see this on your hair brush or in the drain). As someone who doesn’t brush her hair and washes it only every once in a while, I always rake out globs and globs of hair during a shower. I mean, I could donate the stuff for a wig. The last few months or so, I’ve managed to gather about 5 hairs with each shower. The first time I noticed, I found this so phenomenal, I ran downstairs, wet strands in hand, to show Dave. He was also impressed.  In reality, my hair isn’t really growing either. It’s just frozen in place until I give birth, when it will fall out with abandoned.

Gigantic feet – I am only 5’3″, yet I have size 9 feet, quite large for a small person. I had hoped to get through pregnancy with the same size shoe, but this has not been the case. The hormone, relaxin, kicks in during pregnancy and causes your ligaments to relax (hence the name). This is great for your pelvis, which has to accommodate a growing babe. But this also can spread your feet. Now I wear a 9.5, which means I’ve had to buy new shoes and will likely have to give away all my very cute but very uncomfortable size 9 shoes because the change is usually permanent. My friend’s mother gave birth three times and her feet grew half a size with each pregnancy. My sister’s feet, which used to be  a 9 are now a 10 (with baby #2).

Feeling hot ALL THE TIME – Pregnant women have close to 50% more blood coursing through their bodies than they did pre-pregnancy. This makes them walking saunas. I still feel just as cold when I’m out in 30-degree weather, but upon going indoors, I overheat quickly. My body just can’t regulate it’s temperature like it used to. I sleep with two fans on at night and only a sheet. I try to wear short-sleeves, even in January, so I don’t pass out when I’m indoors. I am constantly fanning myself in church, at the movies, in the car. I. Am. Always. Hot.

Constant cold – My nose runs all the time and I’m never without a box of tissues. I blow my nose 100 times a day. Because of the increased blood volume, your nasal passages swell, convincing your body to make more mucus to flush out evil germs when in fact you are virus free. So, if you hear me hacking or sneezing around you, don’t be alarmed. Pregnancy is not contagious.

Burps – Digestion is slowed in pregnancy so your body can extract more nutrients from the food you eat. But slower digestion combined with a crowded torso means you experience a lot more heartburn, acid re-flux and belching. I might have been mildly embarrassed about belching in public before. Now, all bets are off.

Back pain – Pretty classic pregnancy symptom but quite annoying. My back pain has moved from my lower back all the way up to my shoulder blades as the pregnancy has progressed. The chiropractor says it’s my changing posture, but I imagine it’s also my changing bra size, as well. I sleep with a heating pad every night and have to take frequent stops on long car trips to walk around. It’s pretty much always with me and there ain’t much I can do about it!

Swollen eyes – That’s right – not only have my belly and my feet grown, but also my eyes!! This has to do with blood volume, which especially affects your eyes (and all of it’s tiny blood vessels). My contacts don’t fit very well at all and I spend most of the day squinting. My eyes always feel dry. I’ve started to wear my glasses more.

Forgetfulness/clumsiness – Supposedly this is pretty common for pregnant women. Some have coined forgetfulness associated with pregnancy the “pregnancy brain.” And clumsiness comes with relaxed ligaments and changing center of gravity. But quite frankly, I was forgetful and clumsy before pregnancy, so I haven’t really noticed a difference. I lose things, am terrible at memory recall, spill things and trip over myself pretty much all the time. But I think that’s just the way that I am.

I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid (or no longer have to endure) some of the more heinous pregnancy symptoms like hemorrhoids (only experienced these twice in the second trimester), constipation (I drink a LOT of water), stretch marks (none on my stomach, anyway), sciatica, vomiting, high blood pressure (my blood pressure was low a few weeks ago, it was 90/60!), mood swings and the like. Here’s hoping none of these will pop up over the next 10 weeks. But if they do, at least the end is near!

Greetings virtual world. A quick update to say that, as the folk saying goes, I’m currently enjoying the easiest, most awesomest trimester – the second. I’m 27 weeks tomorrow (that’s 6 months for those unaccustomed to thinking in weeks) and pleasantly large, enough to elicit some sympathy/special treatment in the checkout line at the grocery store. But I’m not yet whale-sized, considering I still get handed a beer list when out at restaurants (or a glass of wine while at a rehearsal dinner my husband and I just attended). And as Dave pointed out, I’ve been pregnant for half a year. Sweet lord. 

The first trimester is weary (you are tired and sick and hormonal), your second trimester is cheery (your energy is back, your hormones have gone, you actually look pregnant but aren’t huge enough for this to cause major problems), and your third trimester is dreary (tired, huge, and bored with pregnancy).

I’m not sure if I knew this before pregnancy. Many people have asked me how I’m doing, assuming the worst (“After the crappy first trimester, it’s only downhill from there, right?”). When I tell them I actually feel like a normal human being (minus having another human being inside of me squirming around), people are surprised. 

I’m now only an occasional insomniac (up for two hours a night 2 or 3 times a week – not bad) and generally feel fine if I get a total of 7 hours sleep. I haven’t been pounding the TUMS (acid reflux will come back soon, but now it’s on hiatus). No hemorrhoids, no constipation, no swelling of the hands or feet, no belly stretch marks, no absurd weight gain (I’ve gained 18lbs thus far…only 17 more lbs to go!), no nausea, no insatiable appetite, no yeast or bladder infections in the last month. Even my constant congestion has leveled out a bit, or at least I haven’t gotten used to it. And, as the doc informed me yesterday, I’m no longer measuring several weeks ahead. I’m right on track for 27 weeks. 

Most remarkably, I haven’t been anxiously google searching symptoms, nor have I made any unscheduled visits to the OB in several months (*pats self on back*). I’m no longer convinced that I have an incompetent cervix, that my baby is no longer living (the kicking helps), or that I’m going into preterm labor. They say that the deluge of hormones coursing through you in the first few months can cause a lot of emotional upheaval. Some women cry. Some get angry.I got anxious. Sigh. Glad to be back to my mostly chilled-out self. 

I occasionally have a small libation of my husband’s beer, have most certainly pounded some cold cuts and soft cheese, and have stood near the running microwave more than once. It’s hard to abide by all the pregnancy no-nos when you feel so…normal.  

Mainly, my back hurts (I use a heating pad every night) and my shoulders hurt (change in posture), but I’m seeing a chiropractor every two weeks which helps. And I sneeze a lot. And I can’t really put on my shoes very well. And I’m nervously awaiting the results of my blood glucose test. And my breasts look like aliens from outer-space. But that’s it. Frankly, I feel like a million bucks. 

This past weekend, we threw a Christmas open house (my idea), which involved several days of cleaning and decorating our gigantic parsonage (with decor handmade by yours truly – a cost-saving measure), several days of cooking tons of food (seriously, there was tons), and an entire day on my feet food prepping food, standing on step stools to hang decorations, crawling on all fours to plug in lights and water the tree, and then greeting guests and spreading general merriment. Quite frankly, I would never have pulled that off in my first trimester. And, most likely, my body (and the baby) would have rebelled in the third trimester, as well. But, besides some extremely achy feet at the end of the day, I felt fine. 

The baby is active and growing. It kicks a lot at night (which sometimes wakes me up), and when I lay on my side, I can sometimes feel it’s entire body rolling over and it feels like an earth quake. Hard to describe, but it’s bizarre. Dave can feel it regularly now, which is a delight. If it’s particularly hyped up on sugar, I can see my belly moving, like a cat under a blanket. Freaky. But totally awesome.

When I started spotting very early on in my first trimester,  the first thing the doctor did was give me an ultrasound. Before 12 weeks or so, these ultrasounds are transvaginal, definitely more invasive than the abdominal kind. Most OB offices won’t do ultrasounds before 12 weeks for a few reasons. In those first few weeks, barely anything is visible – just an empty-looking gestational sac. And babies grow at varying rates during this time. I had hoped that an early ultrasound would put my mind at ease (“No, you’re not miscarrying because I see an egg sac…”) but instead, they became one of the main sources of my early pregnancy anxiety. After continuing to spot for some time, and after the 3rd ultrasound without seeing much, the doctor had me do blood work to measure HCG levels. As my previous post stated, mine didn’t rise “properly” (though there are several studies showing that many healthy pregnancies don’t fall into this doubling pattern – my mother-in-law experienced this with both her pregnancies), and this combined with the ultrasound had the doctor calling me after hours saying “Things don’t look good.”

When I went in for my 4th ultrasound to confirm that, indeed, things did not look good, I saw an egg sac and a fetal pole – good signs that the pregnancy was progressing normal. “This is why we try not to do early ultrasounds,” said the doc. “Babies just grow at different rates.” Well then, did I have an ultrasound-happy obstetrician? Should I have refused the first few ultrasounds? Shouldn’t she have told me that spotting in early pregnancy is normal and we won’t find any results on the ultrasound for another week or so?

On average, a woman with a low-risk pregnancy will have 2-3 ultrasounds total her entire pregnancy. By the time I was 13 weeks, I had already had 6, not counting the basic anomaly scan at 18 weeks. Did all of these ultrasounds put me at ease? Yes and no. Yes, seeing my little babe’s heart flutter on the screen helped me rest assured. But those random and uneventful weeks when ultrasounds weren’t necessary (usually, the midwifes will just check the fetal heart rate with a monitor), I found myself worrying that they were missing something. Because my pregnancy was so closely (and literally) watched in those first few weeks, I get uneasy when so much time passes without peering inside my womb.

My mother and women in her generation went almost their entire pregnancies without the use of ultrasound technology, with only one or two scans. Before this century, the first time parents saw their children was outside of the womb. Nowadays, ultrasounds are used to determine any number of fetal or placental anomalies way before due date, as well as identifying the sex of the child. Most would argue that these are positive advancements. And I would argue that, certainly, being prepared for your child and all its possible needs sure beats being shocked. But I can only wonder if ultrasound technology (not to mention prenatal testing in the form of blood work and amniocentesis), is contributing to the Too Much Information epidemic of which most modern pregnant women are suffering.

A close friend from mine went in for a routine ultrasound during her pregnancy, which ended up being a rather traumatic experience. The ultrasound showed a soft marker for Down Syndrome  (heart calcification), which meant that their child had a 1 in 400 chance of having an extra 21st chromosome. Most of the time, the calcification clears up and has zero effect on the child. But instead of being reassured with the statistics, my friend and her partner were ushered into a room to meet with a genetic counselor, though they had previously mentioned that no such counseling was necessary (as abortion was not an option). Several months later, they welcomed a healthy, ‘normal’ child into the world, though they spent the last few months of pregnancy wondering with some trepidation about the fate of their child.

My sister experienced something similar during one of her routine ultrasounds. The tech found choriod plexus cysts in the fluid around the baby’s brain – pretty non-threatening in and of themselves, but a soft indicator of genetic abnormalities like Edwards syndrome. Most of the time, these cysts will clear up by 24 weeks, and the midwife reassured my sister that she likely had nothing to worry about. Nonetheless, the waiting time is always stressful, even if you feel called to welcome all life into the world. Of course, at 24 weeks, another ultrasound showed that the cysts had cleared up.

There are plenty other stories like this, with expecting parents encounter disconcerting news through an ultrasound that later turns out to be a non-issue. Before the advent of ultrasound technology, how many healthy babies were born who, while in-utero, also had heart calcification and or plexus cysts?  How would we ever know? Are ultrasounds giving pregnant women too much information to stress over during an already stressful season of life?

Plenty  of women use ultrasound technology to determine the sex of their child. And though this seems pretty benign (and often is – again, who doesn’t want to be prepared?), there is one sinister effect: sex-selective abortion. Yesterday, I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast called “Misadventures in Babymaking,” about the the one-child policy in China. According to the podcast, the natural sex ratio at birth in all human populations is 105 boys to 100 girls, because baby boys are fragile and die more often in infancy. In China, however, the ratio is more like 121 boys to 100 girls. This is known as the “Missing Women Problem,” which dates back to an observation Amartya Sen made in 1990. He compared the total number of women in all of Asia (not just China) with what should have been the natural sex ratio, and found that a hundred million women were missing, i.e., 100,000,000 baby girls were never born.  Some estimate that that number is now 160 million missing women. The son preference spans many different countries, including China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, Armenia, Albania, Azerbaijan – places with very different political, economic, religious and cultural perspectives. Yet the one thing that ties these countries together is the ultrasound. In the words of Stephen Dubner, “One piece of technology. 160 million missing women.” Dubner also points out that the ultrasound machine didn’t create this kind of problem, but it does enable it: “‘Son preference’ already existed, but along came a new birth technology that let mothers do something about it. Technology has consequences – often unintended ones.”

Sex-selective abortion, like the 90% abortion rate of fetuses with Down Syndrome, is disturbing on a number of levels. But what’s especially chilling is that ultrasounds are not 100 percent accurate. I know several women who were told they were having a girl that turned out to be a boy (or vice versa). I’ve also heard countless stories of women pressured to abort their “severely disabled fetus” that turned out to be perfectly healthy (or a perfectly wonderful disabled child). Ultrasounds, though useful in moderation, have become like gods dispensing knowledge that determines the future of our children. We should all find this worrisome.

But I also know that ultrasound technology has enabled women with poor fetal diagnoses to connect with their in-utero children who will almost inevitably die after birth. My friends Dayna and Eric learned that their child had a fatal birth defect, anencephaly, at their 20 week ultrasound. They also learned that their child was a boy, and so they named him Ethan and spent the next 5 months bonding with him and preparing for his birth and his death. Their story is heartbreaking and lifegiving, and if it weren’t for that fateful ultrasound, they would never had known how little time they had with their son.

So, all that to be said, I feel ambivalent about ultrasounds, as I do with most medical technology surrounding birth.  I know some women refuse ultrasounds for their entire pregnancy, perhaps in protest of the above, perhaps because a few studies show ultrasounds may have a negative effect on fetal outcome, or perhaps because they find not knowing more comforting than knowing too much. Whatever the reason, I admire these women. So brave! So at peace! So old-school! Yet, I can’t help but continue to cling to the reassurance the ultrasound gives me, and rejoice in the brief glimpse of the little stranger growing inside of me. I’m still amazed by the grainy black-and-white picture on my fridge that shows 2 tiny feet and 10 tiny, fully-formed toes.

I was a notorious slacker in grad school. I always read only just enough to get by, and generally succeeded at that.  Of course, “enough to get  by” generally meant 300 or so pages weekly. For several classes, I was reading a book once a week. After 3 years of theology and ethics texts, I was ready to be done. However, I’ve always read a book before bed, usually a novel.

This habit has only picked up since I’ve acquired insomnia during my pregnancy. Since the first trimester, I spend at least 4 (sometimes 5) nights a week wide awake at night. Occasionally I awake with crazy heartburn or a terrible backache. But most of the time, I just wake up, usually between 2 and 4am, and read for 3 hours until I feel tired again. This of course means I am bulldozing through entire books in a matter of days.  This also means that reading has become an essential part of my night routine. I panic when I finish a book and there isn’t another to take its place. I’ve been hitting up a lot of used bookstores lately, and I joined our local library. Life-savers!

Here’s a list of books I’ve plowed through since July (i.e., since moving to Raleigh and becoming pregnant). This averages out to about a book a week.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Slow Man by J. M. Coetzee

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides

How to Be Good by Nick Hornby

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

For the Time Being by Annie Dillard

A Good Man is Hard to Find: Short Stories by Flannery O’Connor

I imagined that my body would get kind of wonky during pregnancy. Things are changing rather rapidly. Tons of new hormones. Major bone and organ shifting as the baby grows. You gain weight quickly (like never before). But for some reason, I didn’t really consider the emotional toll this would have on my life. It feels a lot like puberty, frankly. Your body is no longer under your control but powered by some unforeseen force (hormones! or, in my case, a tiny apple-sized creature inside of me!). Symptoms or health issues you’ve never experienced before rapidly pop up every week, just to keep you on your toes.

Here’s a small list of some of the crazy changes my body has experienced in the last four months. Some are recurring, some have stopped all together and some will continue to get worse.

Acne – I’ve never had great skin but now I really do resemble my 16-year old self. Back, face, arms. You name it.

Butt and hip pain – Pretty expected but pretty annoying. As my pelvis shifts to accommodate the  babe, my pelvic bones (particularly in my lower back) are shifting this way and that, giving me a pain in the ass, quite literally.

Nail growth – I’m a habitual nail-biter, but several weeks ago I got a manicure for a wedding, which prompted me not to chomp. Well, I swear to you my nails have grown a half centimeter since then. My nails have never been this long.

Itchiness – Along with blemishes, hormones can cause your skin to become drier (my problem) and itchy as your skin grows. I”m trying not to rip my flesh off with my new nails.

Urinary tract infections – I’ve had these my whole life, but apparently they are particularly common in pregnancy as your urethra stretches out and allows more bacteria in. Fun. I went on a week of antibiotics to clear this up, which may just have caused….

Yeast infections – Mmm. Never had one of these before. But, again, your vagina and your cervix are basically on steroids during pregnancy, so things tend to get out of whack more quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if my antibiotic regime caused this lovely infection (antibiotics kill all bacteria, including the good flora that keeps your vagina right on track).

Hemorrhoids- Sweet lord. Could it get any worse? The weight of the baby and the mass increase in blood flow causes varicose veins (and hemorrhoids are just one form). Fortunately, mine are internal, so they don’t hurt much and they heal easily. However, they cause you to bleed like you’re on your period. And, any amount of blood in the toilet is enough to stop my heart (see previous post).

Heartburn – I had this pre-pregnancy but pregnancy heartburn is worse. Tums are my new best friend. Also, they say the same hormone that causes heartburn may also cause the baby to sprout hair. So, hairy baby here we come.

Weight gain – Boring but still quite the change. So far, I’m 8lbs up from my pre-pregnancy weight and climbing. I can only wear maternity clothes.

Pamela Anderson-like breasts – My breasts have easily grown 40% in size. They are a shocking new addition to my body, esp. because I had rather small breasts before (oh how I miss them!). They are also painful and angry, like Pamela Anderson’s breasts, I’m sure.

Laughing and crying – Being pregnant is a bit like those few days right before you start your period when every NPR story, Cheetos commercial or squashed bug on the sidewalk makes you cry. But what I’ve noticed even more is I am laughing. A lot. At stupid things. My laugh is loud and indiscriminate. Gotta say, this has to be a plus.

Frequent urination – In your first trimester, hormones are causing your body to flush fluids rapidly through your system, so even though you are still small with child, you pee about 5 times an hour. As someone who has long enjoyed bladder fortitude, this was annoying. I would pee twice before bed, then at 2:30am, and then 6:30am. Fortunately, this has died down.

Insomnia – Peeing frequently seemed to set a pattern of insomnia that’s been hard to break. For the last two weeks, the vast majority of my nights have looked like this: Crash at 10:30 and sleep until 3:30. Wake for no apparent reason and lay there until 4:30.  Turn on light and read book until 5:30 or 6 when Dave’s alarm goes off. Pass out until 9:30 or 10.

Food aversions – There’s a lot of debate about whether pregnancy cravings are real (as in physiological) as opposed to psychological. I definitely craved pickles and continue to crave meat in all forms (and anything sour). But the most pronounced food issue I experienced was food aversions. Just thinking about certain things (certain veggies) or hearing them mentioned (“Sausage balls,” which Dave mentioned once at 6 weeks) made me want to vomit. Fortunately, I NEVER VOMITED. Boom.

Increased sense of smell – This is an annoying superpower. Fortunately it has died down. But in the first trimester, I couldn’t stand the smell of celery (even the memory of it makes me gag), my Burts Bees lip balm (what the?) and anything burned (like the charred crumbs at the bottom of our toaster oven). I could smell what Dave was eating for dinner two rooms away. I could smell the dirt outside. Everything smelled.

Faintness – A few days ago, Dave and I were in Winston Salem taking a tour through a museum (guided tour only) and half-way through, I became extremely hot and had to sit down. And then, I started yawning nonstop and sweating profusely. Then, everything became fuzzy. “Dave, we’ve got to get out of here.” We had to interrupt the tour so the lady could lead us out. Sweet lord I’ve never almost fainted before. These are the weeks when your blood pressure is the lowest as your body works to pump more blood through your system. Being too hot, standing for along time, dehydration or low blood sugar can make you pass out. Eeek.

Headaches – My posture is out of whack because my lower spine is moving forward, causing my neck to compensate and giving me wicked headaches. Thank you, lord, for the nice chiropractor.

Increased vaginal discharge – Woohoo! This is exactly what it sounds like. You are never dry.

Hairy belly – Is it just me or does my belly look like a furby? I’m a hairy person but wow. Like your nails, pregnancy can cause your hair to grow faster. So far, my belly’s been the only victim….but what’s next??

Totally random bleeding – I’ve had my fair share of this during pregnancy and it’s freaky. Some of it is from cervical infections, or a “friable cervix” (which the midwife mentioned I had a few weeks ago). You are just full of blood, and anything from constipation straining to sex to exercise can cause you to spot. Other causes – ovarian or cervical cyst, placental abruption or previa, implantation spotting, or….miscarriage. Yikers. (Previously, I had written “Random-ass bleeding,” meaning “Totally random bleeding.” For Random ass bleeding, see “Hemorrhoids.”)

Allergies – I’ve never been one to suffer majorly from allergies. But for the past three weeks, I can’t go anywhere without a tissue. Sometimes, I sneeze 7 times in a row. My eyes itch all the time. I am a snot machine, basically, especially at night. Pregnancy makes your blood vessels dilate in your nose, which just aggravates allergies even more.

Now, just imagine all of these things happening AT THE SAME TIME, or at least, within several weeks of each other. When I read these lists before I was pregnant, I thought “Well, I can handle that…and that.” But I didn’t comprehend that all of these things would descend in a gigantic pregnancy symptom hurricane. I must say, the second trimester IS proving to be better, but I still can’t quite say I enjoy being pregnant (even when I reflect on the great joy of carrying a human life inside of me blah blah blah). But, here we are! And here I am! And there it is!

Welp, I’m pregnant.  16 weeks exactly. It’s been quite the journey. And I should preface this by saying…a combination of heightened progesterone flowing through my body, tumultuous weekly changes in my body and various scary episodes in the first trimester have toppled my TMI filter.

Getting pregnant was easy. Dave and I were using the sympto-thermal method of birth control (i.e., a form of natural family planning) which is both an effective form of avoiding pregnancy AND a way to get pregnant pretty easily (by identifying your peak fertility days). It works like a charm if you are vigilant. And we were quite vigilant, in fact. We were intentional about getting pregnant and because I was never on the pill (and didn’t have residual hormones floating around), I got knocked up right away. Just a few days later, there was a little plus on my early pregnancy test. Still, this came as a bit of a surprise. I know many couples with heart wrenching stories of trying to conceive for months and months, sometimes years and years. I have a few friends who are still trying, 4 or 5 years later. So, when Dave and I decided to put a bun in the oven, I thought starting early wouldn’t hurt. Who knows how long it will take?

Welp, here we are….rapidly moving from one life stage to the next! D and I got married a year ago this October 9th, I graduated from div school in May, Dave took a ministry job and we moved to Raleigh in June and then I became great with child. We couldn’t be more excited, though I imagine the reality of child-rearing won’t settle in until I push the thing out and we are holding it in our arms. Now that my belly is swelling a bit, things seem more real, not to mention I haven’t had my period for several months. That’s a strange change.

I didn’t know quite what to expect with the firs trimester, but since my mom and sister didn’t report many symptoms with their pregnancies (and my sister, who is currently 6 months pregnant, still runs a few times a week), I imagined it would be a breeze (or at least breeze-like). I’m relatively young. I’m healthy. I have no preexisting conditions that would make conception or child-bearing difficult. I’ve been taking my prenatal vitamins religiously since I got married. And I’ve had few if any medical issues in my past. These all resulted in my naive assumption that I was immune to pregnancy complications.

Early on, about 6 weeks in, I started spotting brown (TMI alert). Spotting is generally not a big deal, somewhat typical in early pregnancy and a good sign if it’s brown (this means old blood). But after a week or so of this, I decided to make an appointment with an Ob office to figure out what was going on. Generally you don’t see the doc/midwife until about 10-12 weeks, but the Ob office I called felt like my symptoms granted a visit. The doctor did a an ultrasound, said the gestational sac look normal though it was too early to see anything else (the next thing to show up is the egg sac and fetal pole). When my spotting got heavier and redder, I went in and, again, nothing to see on the ultrasound.

The doctor ordered blood work to check HCG levels (they should double every two days in early pregnancy) and, two days later I received a call from her that “things didn’t look good.” My HCG levels rose only 55% and, according to the doctor, 53% is the cut off for any known viable pregnancy. Yikes. Well, that’s about the time that I decided holding out hope would be more destructive than staring reality directly in the face. I was deeply saddened and rather frightened, but tried my best to accept the fact that this pregnancy was nonviable (or worse case scenario, ectopic). I called my parents and my sister, I wrote a sad email my close friends both announcing my pregnancy and it’s inevitable end, and planned on getting the final verdict from the doctor a few days later.

My mom came down to NC and the three of us (D, my mom and I) headed to the Ob. My doctor was out, so another doctor read my chart and, rather than sit and discuss as is normal, he took my directly into the examining room for an ultrasound to see what we could see. We braced ourselves. But low and behold, there on the grainy US screen was a little round blob that looked like a signet ring – an egg sac with fetal pole. Needless to say, I burst into tears. Dave had said the night before that the most surprising news we could possibly encounter is that we are still going to have a baby. And, that was the news! The doctor printed off a picture and I stared at it in awe for the rest of the day. “This is what we don’t do ultrasounds this early. Babies grow at different rates.” I was shocked. I went from moving about the house gingerly, afraid my Fallopian tube could rupture at any moment (the doctor feared it may be ectopic) to pounding a milkshake with my mom after the appointment. It was a definite mental shift for sure.

Dave and I went in a week or so later and saw a bean-like baby on the ultrasound. Things seemed to be progressing normally. My spotting had died down and things were looking good. And, around this time, I decided to switch practitioners with midwives (and I was feeling a bit pissed about the way things had progressed with my previous doctor). Fast forward to 9 weeks or so and I’m making enchiladas in the kitchen, listening to a podcast, when suddenly I feel wet. I check things out and my hand is covered in blood. I had bled through my pants and, as a result,  my blood pressure went through the roof. “This is it,” I thought. This is what a miscarriage is. I wasn’t experiencing any pain but the blood was enough to freak me out. I called Dave (who was making a pastoral visit at the hospital), called my parents and my sister and then the midwife on call. She told me to put my feet up and wait it out. This is probably the most frustrating (but most understandable) advice regarding weird pregnancy symptoms. It could be nothing or it could mean miscarriage. You just have to wait and see.

I didn’t bleed any more after that one frightening experience but promptly scheduled an appointment with my midwife. She checked me out the next day. Again, I braced myself. But there on the screen was a healthy, dancing baby. “It could have been a ruptured cervical cyst.” I had never heard of this  before, nor did I find much info about it on the internet. But she told me rest assure that the bleeding wasn’t affecting the baby and this put me at ease. Ever trip to the bathroom was  a bit nerve racking after that (and still is) but I tried to remain calm. Sometimes even this (inexplicable, totally freaky bleeding) happens in normal, healthy pregnancies.

Fast forward two weeks later. I’m in Utah for my friend Rachel’s wedding. Along with an intense, 8-hour day of travel (including lifting heavy luggage into the overhead bins on the airplane – I’m an idiot), pretty much no sleep, and an intense day of walking around doing wedding tasks (I was a bridesmaid), I was pretty achy upon hitting the sake. Thee ol’ pelvis is not the same as it used to be pre-pregnancy. I woke up at 4am to pee (not an unusual occurrence), and there in the toilet was blood. My heart sank/started beating through the roof. I was one of 10 crammed into my friend Rachel’s house (Lex and Jon were sleeping at the foot of our bed) sharing one bathroom. I was far from home, far from my Ob-Gyn. I was going to be in a wedding in just a few days. And now, I’m bleeding. It’s so hard not to assume that every time you see blood, it’s a miscarriage. But I rushed back to bed and told Dave I was scared. He reminded me it had been a very busy, active day, and I wasn’t having any cramping. I tried to fall asleep. The rest of the weekend went fine. The bleeding was a one-time thing (again). I spotted a bit but took it easy. I didn’t dance much (sad) but managed to go on a little hike (beautiful) and make it home in one piece.

Now, here we are. No spotting for two weeks. Baby bump on its way. And a big sigh of relief that I’m out of the first trimester. Oye. And yet, I still find that I’m bracing myself at each appointment. What if they find something THIS time? What about THIS time? So far, God has answered our prayers and the baby continues to thrive. But at this rate, I just want to have a calm and boring pregnancy from here on out. Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is. But, at the moment, I’m too freaked out to exercise (plus the midwife suggested I stop), Dave has to lift even slightly heavy things for me, we are most assuredly not having sex (see pelvic rest) and all in all I’m feeling like a frail, fat butterfly rather than the hardy, fertile mountain lioness I was hoping to embody during my pregnancy. I imagined myself out in the garden, hoeing the dirt and wiping the sweat from my brow with my huge belly shining in the sun. I imagined being super productive rather than laying in bed all day or complaining of hip pain after a short walk.

I imagined my life wouldn’t change all that much until the babe came. But, I guess, I’m getting a good early lesson in the fact that babies disrupt your life in major ways, and because you love them, desire a good and enriched life and hope that they will thrive under your care, you do whatever it takes to ensure their health and well being, even if that means sitting on your ass most of the day, or sleeping on your left side at night even if it means you’ll never fall asleep, or avoiding the cold cut sub you’ve been craving like  an addict craves crack. And eventually this will mean waking up every three hours to feed the baby from my very body, walking the baby up and down the hall as it cries inconsolably, enduring countless nights of sleeplessness and countless days of broken engagements as your baby calls the shots (at least in those first months). Perhaps I should be thankful that this lesson in life-interrupting is coming early, though to be frank, I was hoping for a few more months off before mommyhood begins. But I would not take any of it back for the world.  This little, squirming life inside me is a gift to be nurtured and brought into being, in whatever way God sees fit. And for that joyful mystery, I say thank you, Lord, thank you.

Several years ago, after I boarded a airplane to visit my grandparents, I felt a strange surge of adrenaline. My breath grew shallow, my heart beat fast and I began to sweat. I realized, with great surprise, that I was terrified of flying. I had flown countless times before, but this feeling of uneasiness was entirely new.  Like many people afraid to fly, I tried to rationalize my fear.  The veil had been pulled back and I was now witnessing air travel for what it really is, certain death. My fellow passengers, on the other hand, calmly read their SkyMall magazines, ignorant to the fact that we are all strapped inside a thin metal tube rushing through the air at an ungodly speed, like a bullet shot from a gun. “But Heather,” my father would say, “Flying is the safest way to travel!” And yet, I still can’t shake the gut-wrenching fear I feel as I sit in a plane, waiting for it to take off.

The truth is, I am not so much afraid of flying as I am of dying. Flying is just a stand in, a scapegoat for the real terror I try so desperately to avoid. So many of our fears are like that. When we get to the bottom of them, we realize we aren’t afraid of snakes or public speaking; we are afraid of losing control of our lives.  Unable to face our own mortality, we deny the existence of death all together. Some theorists argue that this denial is the motivating, energizing factor of human existence.[1] Just think of how our culture copes with death. We develop funny, irrational phobias. We crack jokes and laugh at cartoons of the Grim Reaper. We use quaint euphemisms about death – pushing up daisies, kicked the bucket, bought the farm. We hold our breaths when we pass graveyards, we bless our neighbors when they sneeze, and try not to speak ill of the dead. Despite the many ways we try to distance ourselves from it, however, death remains a devastating, offensive reality in our lives.

In our reading for today, we come face to face with the stench of death.  It floats up from the pages and disturbs our senses. A man named Lazarus is sick and things aren’t looking good. His breathing has grown shallow, his skin is pale and cold. His sisters, Mary and Martha, watch over him with grave concern. Their dear brother is dying and they are out of options. They need a miracle. What about their friend, Jesus, they wonder. Jesus, who calls himself the bread of life, the light of the world,  the one who gives living water. Jesus, who healed a sick child, who opened the eyes of the blindman and fed the hungry crowds. Yes, Jesus can heal their brother, but first they must wait for his return. And what an agonizing wait it is.

Few things are more painful than waiting with your heart in your throat. The seconds feel like hours, hours like days. Just last week, I heard a story from a man whose son was teaching English in a coastal Japanese town near the earthquake’s epicenter. The father saw news of the earthquake in the newspaper, and then  he had to wait nearly 72 excruciating hours before he heard that his son had survived.  So many of us have endured the unbearable delay– waiting of biopsy results, for lines on a pregnancy test, for the chemotherapy to kick in, for the soldier to come home safe. Like Martha and Mary, we’ve all experienced the pain of delay where we can only sit and wait, fighting off the overwhelming darkness of our anxiety with the faint glimmer of hope.

Meanwhile, Jesus has received the sisters’ news that Lazarus, whom he loves, is very sick. “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” This is just like Jesus – cool, calm, collected, virtually unmoved by the news that his dear friend is sick. This Jesus isn’t thwarted by even the worst of ailments. We can breathe a sigh of relief. We’re about to see God’s glory. And then, in a bizarre and disturbing twist, Jesus does nothing. He does not drop everything he is doing to return to his dear friend’s bedside. He doesn’t send a note to comfort the distraught Martha and Mary. No, instead Jesus stays two more days, biding his time as he waits for Lazarus to die. Listen to the ESV: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” So. Accordingly. Therefore. This being so. Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, so he stayed away. For the distraught sisters of Bethany, the love of Jesus meant watching their brother die. By the time Jesus returns, Lazarus is rotting in the tomb.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” Martha tells Jesus when he shows up in Bethany. No doubt there is an edge to her voice. “If you had been here…” Mary wail to him, weeping at his feet. If you had been here, Jesus, the earth under Japan would have ceased its quaking at your command. If you had been here, Jesus, the gunman would have dropped his weapon. If you had been here Jesus, my child’s brain tumor would have vanished into nothing.

The season of Lent is a painful time of waiting. Like Mary and Martha, we wait anxiously for Jesus to return. Like Mary and Martha, we cry out in faithful Lament, “Lord! Death is terrible! Death stinks! What’s taking you so long?” During Lent, we refuse to deny the excruciating nature death. We weep with Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus; we grieve for all those who have died waiting for resurrection. This is the season for solemn reflection and penitence, the season when we stand up to our death-denying culture and say “From dust we came and to dust we shall return.”

But this is also the season when we declare that the death does not have the final word. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Jesus asks Martha. “Do you believe this?” Jesus asks us. It’s one thing to believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. But me? And you? Lazarus who rots in the tomb? Do we dare believe that Jesus has power even over the grave?

Wiping away his tears, Jesus commands, “Take away the stone.” But Lord, in case you missed the news, this man is dead. The stench of death will overwhelm us all. He’s gone. You’re too late. Our hearts are broken. Be gentle with us.

And then, without warning, Jesus yells, “Lazarus, come out!” And low and behold, Lazarus lurches into the light, bandaged like a mummy, blinking and filled with bewilderment. Indeed, we have seen the horrifying glory of God, for the dead walk, the dry bones rise up and dance.

By raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus declares power over death. But he does not render death incompatible with the Christian life. After all, though Lazarus has been yanked from the grave, he will return to the tomb just as he did before. The miracle is not that Lazarus rises from the dead, but that in our living and in our dying, we are never separated from the love of God. Christ waits for Lazarus to die because he loves the disciples. He waits for him to die because he loves Mary, Martha and Lazarus. “For your sake, I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” Through the death of Lazarus, God’s glory is revealed. And through the death of God’s only son, all of creation is redeemed. This is the paradox at the heart of our faith: death leads to life, the cross leads to eternal glory. In the words of the poet Auden: “life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have consented to die.”[2] To be a Christian means learning how to die, so that we might find life, and that Life may find us.[3]

In these forty days of Lent, we are called to live our lives as a reminder that death has lost its ultimate power.  Paul tells us that, in Christ, our last great enemy has been defeated: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”  Yes, death is real and agonizing, but Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, has gone before us. He has experienced the agony and has transfigured death in his very body. And we now live with the confidence that death ends in eternal life. Just as we were created out of dust, Jesus tells us that we will be raised up from the ground. This is the promise of the final resurrection. Out of the formless dust, out of the great abyss, the dark pit of despair, the tomb of our unmaking, we will be spring forth, dead men and women walking in resurrected glory.

For my first sermon, I was assigned an Epistle passage (gag me, I know….no offense, Paul). It could use a bit of editing. The moves are a little muddy and convoluted. But after I threw in a few basketball references, ribbed (or skewered?) the LEADLEADLEAD obsession of my dear seminary, and inserted a carefully placed cuss word, I believe it came together nicely.

1 Corinthians 4:1-4: Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. ²Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. ³But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. ⁴I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

Foolish Wisdom from a Cross-Shaped Apostle

Perhaps this has happened to you. You sit down at a computer in the library to check your email, only to find someone else’s email account already open. Here is an email from someone you don’t know to someone you don’t know about who knows what. And yet, your eyes linger just long enough to see that this email is part of a heated exchange. You are both intrigued yet disturbed, not only because you are reading someone else’s email, but because you assumed your fellow Divinity classmates were sanctified, benevolent people. After all, future ministers never fight or disagree, and they definitely don’t use language like that!

Hearing Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is uncomfortable because it feels a lot like reading someone else’s mail. In these few short verses, we are given insight into the nasty conflicts that were plaguing the church in Corinth. And we are distracted, jarred even, by the language Paul uses. Servants and stewards? Mysterious things? If these aren’t enough for us to hit the X at the top of the screen, we undoubtedly squirm at the mention of the J word – judgment. The J word is rarely used within the hallowed halls of our beloved Duke Divinity School, unless that J word is Justice or Jewish Identity. Or JJ Reddick. No, judgment makes us uncomfortable, not to mention judgment we overhear in letters that aren’t even addressed to us.

But, brothers and sisters, as we said only a moment ago, this is the word of God for the people of God…for us. As future preachers and teachers called by God to live our lives in conformity to Christ, let us lend our ear to Paul so that we may become faithful stewards of God’s mysteries. And let’s wrestle with words like judgment.

Wrestling is an apt metaphor for our task because Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is pretty rough and tumble. Up until this point, Paul’s been pulling his punches. But in chapter 4, Paul rolls up his sleeves and gets straight to the point. The Corinthian Christians are judging Paul, or, as the Greek suggests, they are examining him, sizing him up and comparing him other leaders. The Corinthians are fed up with Paul’s ineffective preaching and his underwhelming leadership style. They are ready to leave him in the dust.

This is a pastor’s worst nightmare. According to Cynthia Hale, who has been a minister for over 30 years, the judgment of the Corinthians is all too commonplace in our churches today.  As an African American woman, Hale’s “appropriateness” for ministry has been questioned time and time again. She’s spent much of her career defending her motives, her methods and her “adequacy for the task.”  She writes, “I can testify that [ministry], the very thing that makes me incredibly happy… can at the same time drive me absolutely mad…”

How does Paul respond to the examination he receives from the Corinthian Christians, who are, undoubtedly, driving him “absolutely mad”?  Paul says to them, “It is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or any human count.” In other words, Paul is telling them he couldn’t give a damn what they think. Their examinations are of no consequence. Paul doesn’t even judge himself. Any attempt to cast a verdict before Christ returns is both presumptuous and premature.

So, what exactly is Paul saying? That we have no right to judge anyone? Is Paul delusional? Out of touch? Over-confident? It brings to mind the image of a cantankerous, washed-up pastor, whose gifts for ministry have dried up long ago, yet he clings to the pulpit for dear life. Could Paul be this clueless and stubborn?

This lack of accountability and unwillingness to receive criticism often results in entrenched forms of self-deception and egoism. The first example that comes to mind is the Miami Heat basketball player “Lebron James. “King James,” as he calls himself, is known by many as the most arrogant man in sports. He frequently refers to himself as “the best,” the most talented player on his team, a “superhero.”  American essayist, Chuck Klosterman, argues that James is operating under the mantra, “Only God Can Judge Me.” Klosterman states, “What we are seeing is real confidence, not that kind of confidence we have come to accept, but a real kind of confidence unrelated to how others see him.”

As future pastors and teachers, we would do well to take advice from Paul and NOT Lebron James when it comes to our future vocations. The arrogance, perhaps even cluelessness, of Lebron James is related to his absolute indifference to public judgment. This is certainly not what Paul is advocating for when he says “It is the Lord who judges me.” In fact, Paul’s pastoral authority displayed in this letter can serve as an antidote to the hyper-confidence of many leaders today. Whereas Lebron models the puffed-up arrogance of the Corinthians, Paul remains a “servant of Christ” and “steward of God’s mysteries.”

This is the heart of Paul’s argument. The Corinthians have become their own authority, allocating judgment as if they, themselves, were God. But Paul, the leader of this community, is defining himself as first and foremost a servant of Christ. He is a steward, a manager accountable to one master. And so, Paul’s ministry isn’t about winning personality contests or pandering to the well-to-do members of his congregation. He takes his orders solely from Christ Jesus, the crucified Master of the household of God.

This does not mean that Paul is throwing judgment out all together.  When we look elsewhere in his letter, Paul calls the Corinthians to mediate community conflict. But what Paul is doing here is reframing the Corinthian judgment of his authority in light of the mysteries of the Gospel.  And what exactly are these mysteries? They are the death and resurrection of Jesus, the secret wisdom of the Cross which, according to the world, looks like utter foolishness. Mysteries are mind-boggling  and the mystery of Christ’s self-giving love on the Cross has quite literally boggled the minds of the Corinthians.

Paul, on the other hand, is a man haunted by the Cross, a man who has been crucified with Christ, who died to his murderous, contentious ways and was reborn a fool for the servant king. He is servant to a servant, steward to a slave.  And it is through that relationship that Paul derives his authority – not in eloquence, in wisdom or in rhetorical power, but in conforming his life to Cross of Christ. Paul states, “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of powers, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God” (2:1-5). The cruciform nature of Paul’s leadership may look uninspired, but it has an authority rooted in the radical reality of the Gospel, not in the groundless wisdom of the world.

So let’s get this straight. Paul, the church’s most influential missionary, didn’t have much charisma or charm. This paradigmatic minister came to Corinth as a weak, tremulous man who couldn’t speak well. According to the Greco-Roman conception of leadership, Paul was a dud, an “anti-leader.” He was not the most articulate, the most distinguished, the best and the brightest.  But as America’s best theologian once said, “Best is not a theological category.” Therefore, these sorts of judgments have no bearing on Paul’s authority to preach the Gospel.  For aren’t church leaders mere stewards who perform  the thankless tasks of housekeeping, servants who toil in the field and work site, foolish clowns and low-class buffoons? According to Paul, these are our models for ministry. And guess what? This is GOOD NEWS!

How many of us have questioned our calling to ministry because of the misguided judgments of others or own self doubt-– I’m not charismatic; I’m too old; I’m too young; I’m a woman; I’m a white male; I’m a person of color; I’m not a theologian; I’m not very smart; I’m afraid to speak in public; I’m inexperienced; I’m in debt; I’m disabled; I have a family; I don’t have a family; no one supports my call. Paul tells us that these things have zero consequence for our vocational calls. Zero. Instead, our call to ministry and our assurance in our vocation is rooted in our willingness to die with Christ and conform our bodies, our lives, our very selves to the crucified Lord.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer notes, we often look for visible signs of human authority “because genuine authority…appears to be so unimpressive….The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and [one another].” Ministry has little to do with talent, brilliance or excellence but with faithfulness to the Gospel by encouraging others to imitate us, just as we imitate Christ. It is by this and this alone that we will be judged. And it is Christ, the lamb who was slain, who sits on the judgment seat, not your board of ordained ministry, not your congregation, not your professors, and not yourself.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, go forth with this word of comfort, knowing that your authority as a future pastor, teacher or leader may seem like mind-boggling foolishness to the world. But it is a foolishness that is more true than all the wisdom and knowledge of this age. Let the marks of Christ’s wounds you bear on your body be the sign of your call. Amen.

1) Dave and I got hitched in October.

2) I finished up my last year at divinity school in May and gradumitated.

3) Dave scored a job as a minister in Raleigh.

4) We moved to Raleigh in June (I pine for you, Durham!)

So, there hath been many a change, but now that I’m on the other side of school and staring debt repayment (and other real world things) in the face, I figure I can turn a new blog leaf. As I am unemployed, I spent much time by myself, so blogging would be a nice outlet (though So You Think You Can Dance has also been a nice outlet, I must say).

Anyway, that’s the word. Resurrection in the house. More to come.