The Waiting Game

Today marks the 36th week of my pregnancy...this means I have reached term for a twin pregnancy. All that worry about premature babies is long gone...thank you, Jesus. Now we are anxiously awaiting the babies' arrival...it is imminent but unknown. It could be today or in two weeks! (My doctor will induce if I haven't delivered by the time I reach 38 weeks.) I am having a lot of contractions but the majority of them are not painful...they are Braxton-Hicks or "practice" contractions. I see my doctor tomorrow morning and she will check my progression. Last week I was about 1cm dilated and 75% effaced.

Matt and I have agreed that this is a strange time in our lives. We're in a sort of limbo...the babies could come at any time so we don't want to go anywhere too far from home (or the hospital); Matt has to limit his fishing to areas where he gets cell coverage (poor baby)...We are torn between savoring our time together and being impatient at our sons' arrival. We know our life is going to change dramatically but it hasn't yet. So, it is a strange time in our lives but we have accepted the roller coaster of emotions that comes with it and still find ourselves laughing and enjoying our life together. I recently read this passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book Letters and Papers from Prison and it seems especially appropriate.

"We used to think that one of the inalienable rights of man was that he should be able to plan both his professional and his private life. That is a thing of the past. The force of circumstances has brought us into a situation where we have to give up being 'anxious about tomorrow' (Matt. 6.34). But it makes all the difference whether we accept this willingly and in faith...or under continual constraint. For most people, the compulsory abandonement of planning for the future means that they are forced back into living just for the moment, irresponsibly, frivolously, or resignedly; some few dream longingly of better times to come, and try to forget the present. We find both these courses equally impossible, and there remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future...Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety - that, in practice, is the spirit in which we are forced to live. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative."