Advent-ure

It is Advent season in the church and I am walking into a room filled with my friends. We are all smiling. It is Christmas and there are pretty lights and rich decorations. Everyone loves Christmas. I love Christmas. And this year I love Christmas even more because I am wide with child. I can feel her kicking inside me. I'm large and I'm proud. I'm grateful. 

When people are uttering "Come, Lord Jesus," I am thinking, "Come, little baby." I am not thinking about anything except my baby. I don't even care what they're teaching today about God. I am too busy with happiness. I can't concentrate. Occasionally a tear rolls down my face, but it's the kind that is hot and fierce joy. A hymn suggests that baby Jesus "be born in us today" but all I can think about is how excited I am to give birth to this wild child inside me. Come, my baby.

I am a large, joyful pregnant woman and I will own it all.

My previous declarations of baby were more fragile due to an uncooperative womb. I would say the good news and watch my body swell, then deflate, swell and deflate. It was very confusing. Sometimes I felt like I was lying to people, which is an odd thing to think in retrospect. 

People became weary of my news and gave me some suggestions. 

It's hard to know which people are tender and strong enough to walk with you in hope knowing that there's a possibility of... you know. The thing we don't like to talk about.

December is tricky, too. There is a central figure being talked about and that figure is a baby. So if you have a baby crib on your mind, the feelings tend to be polar in nature, either very bad or very good.

Prior to this year, Advent songs were less delightful. All that baby talk. In church there was a felt banner which held an image of a baby and rendered me temporarily asthmatic. My lungs decided that there wasn't enough oxygen in the room. I was dizzy with grief and teasing.

I wonder if people who lost a loved one at Easter dislike the Easter story. All that talk about someone coming back from the dead. I imagine that to be very hard.

But now I am expecting at Christmastime and I will do anything to give birth to this child. Now I am in the hospital being induced, a week before Christmas. There is a full moon and an ice storm. And there is no room in the hospital. It's beginning to sound a little too familiar. At least I didn't have to ride there on a donkey.

The baby comes, a girl,  and I scoop her into my arms. The nurse asks to take her from me, gesturing that she wants to wash her and without breaking gaze of my new gift I say, "No. You can't have her." I'm fierce with protection now. I will fight this lady if necessary. Nothing can take this warm bundle from me. Come again, tomorrow, nurse. Maybe.

Now it is Christmas day and I have a six day old baby on my chest, sleeping, breathing. I am sitting on the couch, watching my 5 year old open her presents. It has been a long journey for us all. We are wrecked with joy. Hope seen. Arms full. Heart fuller.