The two happiest times in my life, besides the early days when we first met, were the year of our engagement, and the year I was pregnant with Audrey.

Those two years were filled with expectation and planning for the arrival of something so precious and so monumental.  They involved waiting and count downs and careful preparation.  Finding the dress, the right white satin shoes, finding the layered veil and trying it on with tears in my eyes in front of my bedroom mirror.  Imagining…envisioning…and anticipating.   Seeing the heartbeat, feeling and watching those rolling little kicks in my abdomen, and watching you lift an empty baby bear suit up and down mouthing “hi” silently as you did…wondering all along if we were having a boy or a girl, but choosing to wait for the surprise.

As I was driving home from Audrey’s art class yesterday, I must’ve been thinking about how many years I could have to wait to see you Dan- if it’s all true.  I thought that maybe I could view the rest of my life as one long engagement, one long pregnancy…and live a life of pure anticipation.

But then I realized no, that analogy doesn’t quite work.  This certainly doesn’t feel like being engaged or pregnant- and I don’t have that glow or happiness I had then.  Actually, I’m further along that that.  Because what it does feel like, is labor…hard, hard work…sweating, pacing, screaming, trying to find any position that would lessen the pain…but it just keeps coming…stronger…stronger.

Stronger.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”  Romans 8.22