Pregnancy, Then and Now

By Elizabeth Foss
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 10/3/02)

Fourteen years ago, I was expecting a baby around the end of September. As I sit here, awaiting my seventh baby, I’m reflecting on how different it is to prepare for this baby than it was with the first few.

With my first baby, I couldn’t go anywhere without people commenting that I did not look old enough to have a baby and instinctively checking for my wedding band. Now, according to a book in my doctor’s office, I’m an elderly gravida (a lady who is 35 or older and daring to have a baby) and a grand multipara (a lady who dares to do this more than four times). How about that? I’m an "elderly grand!" And I don’t even have gray hair or wrinkles!

In the weeks before my first few babies were born, I cooked and cleaned like a whirlwind. My freezer was stocked with homemade casseroles and soups and stews. My house was in perfect order from the highest ceiling corner to the drawers and closets. I thought I had nearly perfect control over my environment. This time, I made a whirlwind buzz through Trader Joe’s and stocked up on commercially prepared frozen food that I hope at least four out of six children will eat. The house looks decent on some days and I’m keeping up with the laundry. Other than that, Martha Stewart would be horrified. I don’t even try to keep up the pretense of control.

I exercised incessantly during my first pregnancies. At this stage of the game, I was still doing aerobics every day and walking several miles a week. This time, the only exercises I have done in the last two weeks are those prescribed to help a breech baby find her way out. I’ve lifted my gigantic belly onto an ironing board propped at a 45 degree angle against my bed. Then, I’ve "rested" there, headfirst, for 20 minutes at a time, while holding ice up where the baby’s head was and playing music in the direction I wanted her to turn. I’ve also done somersaults in a swimming pool, visited a chiropractor and contemplated acupuncture. If it weren’t so serious, it would have been comical. Fortunately, the baby turned and now I’m just waddling slowly like the elderly grand gravida I am.

I left my classroom the night before my first baby was born with my substitute folder on the desk and about a week’s worth of lessons for one grade level planned and ready. I never looked back; the sub handled everything for eight weeks while I spun a cocoon around my baby and myself. This time, I spent an entire summer writing plans for four grade levels of home schooled children — my own. At the forefront of my planning was the need to be able to execute these plans from my bed, while nursing a baby, and ensuring that my toddlers don’t feel left out. There will be no cocoon this time, just lots of reading aloud to a small crowd of precious children on my king-sized bed.

Aside from the week when the baby was breech and I was threatened with a cesarean section, I haven’t spent too much time thinking about labor and delivery this time. It’s not the big unknown that it was in the past. I know that every labor is different and that I’m as prepared as I can be. Instead, my thoughts are full of babies. I ache to hold this new baby. I so look forward to introducing her to her siblings. I’m anticipating those quiet moments right after birth when my husband and I become acquainted with the real, tangible life of our love.

When I was expecting my second baby, someone offered me an analogy. He said love was like lit candles. With every birth, instead of spreading love around and diffusing it, another candle was lit from the ones already glowing. The light and the heat — the love — intensify in a family. I think grace is like that. With every baby, I’ve come to an increasing awareness that I am not in control; God is. We make a look a little more disheveled. The calendar is a complicated jigsaw puzzle. The bedtime routine takes hours. There is certainly more work to do. This job has grown bigger than me. I need to rely on a power much greater than me.

I have learned to pray throughout pregnancy. I have formed bonds with saints upon whose intercession I rely every time. And I know that they are praying for my baby and me. I’ve learned to trust. There are fleeting fears and a few panicked moments, but I am a much calmer expectant mother than I was 14 years ago. There is peace that comes with being an elderly gravida who is also a grand multipara. It is not a perfect peace — my eyes are wide open and I know that life is always interesting. I know He answers every prayer but that we don’t have guarantees that we’ll like the answer. God is in control and I have a sure sense that when we are open to life, He grants grace that multiplies just like the light from those candles — just like love.

Foss is a freelancer writer from Northern Virginia.

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