Groundhog Day is probably the funniest day of the year to have as your official due date.  There are lots of hilarious jokes that can be made about the baby seeing its shadow, six more weeks of being pregnant, and of course lots of references to the Groundhog Day movie.  I can’t think of another holiday (if this truly counts as a real holiday) that is a funnier day to be expecting a baby.

I don’t know why I always expect that I will have my baby on my due date.  I didn’t.  It is five days later, and she still hasn’t come.  I confess that the morning following Groundhog Day, and the next, and the next, and the next, after consecutive nights of feeling like I was in labor with contractions that eventually fizzled out in the wee hours of the night, I woke up feeling a lot like Bill Murray’s character in the movie.  All week, it has been like reliving the same day over and over.  I go to bed feeling like this is really happening, expecting to wake to strong contractions that keep building until it is clear that it’s time to call Mama and Daddy to come and stay with the kids so we can make our mad dash to the hospital.  And I wake up in the morning with the broken pencil by the nightstand back in one piece, starting the day to another chorus of “I Got You Babe.”

I have never been very good at waiting.  I like to do things quickly and spontaneously.  I like to have an idea and work it through to completion in one sitting.  I am much more likely to make 100 small projects than two or three time consuming ones.

That isn’t the way it is going to be with this pregnancy and birth.  God is doing a slow, intentional, steady work in me.  Every day that I am waiting for this little child to be born is part of that work.  I am looking forward to being on the other side of this birth and to writing the story of Heidi Wren’s coming into the world.  In the meantime, I am reminding myself that I can trust in God’s timing.  And that even though waiting is hard and giving birth is such hard work, I know God is with me, and I can open up my heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit to the experience that He has waiting just before me.  I look forward to sharing this story soon…