1 + 1 = 3

It's been announced to family and friends, it's been announced on Facebook, and you've probably already heard, so it's high time it's announced here:

Jonathan and I are prego with a boy and expecting in April :)

With the prego state comes a prego future. In just a few shorts months, our life will give birth to unimaginable fun, stress, laughter, tears, and change.

BIG change.

"Aren't you excited?"

These were often the first words out of the mouths of friends and family when they found out about Baby K. Admittedly, I also used the word "excited" when people asked how Jonathan and I were feeling. But at the end of Thanksgiving weekend, as I was driving us back on Hwy 5 from Bend, OR where we had spent the holiday with Jonathan's cousin and family, Jonathan watched a movie and I finally took advantage of the quiet to process the life ahead of us. I realized that "excited" doesn't quite sum it up.

I think a new baby is one of, if not THE biggest life changes, anyone can experience. At certain times, yes, I'm excited. At other times, I'm skeptical of our decision to get into this in the first place. Sometimes I'm nervous, sometimes I'm curious, sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm stressed. Normally I'm the type of person that adapts to change well, so it's not just the fact that it's a change. For me, it's the fact that it's a wild frontier of unknowns. Getting into the change of marriage was easy for me. I knew Jonathan. We had talked a lot about expectations and living habits and spent a good deal of time together before getting marriage. Again, I knew Jonathan. But a baby? We don't know this baby. For all intensive purposes, this baby is a stranger. A complete stranger! We have no idea what kind of personality this baby has, how he'll sleep, how he'll interact with us, if he'll have special needs, how he'll develop... many times throughout the past few months I've stepped back from it all in awe, struck by the oddness of person and family creation. One day, in the very near looming future, we will leave our house and life a twosome, and come home a threesome.

So how can "excited" describe a future that is, for the most part, one long horizon of unknowns? It's sort of like getting pregnancy advice from women who have been pregnant. Every woman who's been pregnant feels like she can tell you how your pregnancy will go--what symptoms you'll have, how you'll carry and how that determines if it's a boy or a girl, how your labor will feel, etc. But every pregnancy is different. So is having a baby. It's not just a baby; it's a tiny person. God is entrusting a tiny person into our care to know and nourish and love, and every person is different from the next. Every tiny person is an adventure--no one has ever loved and raised that tiny person before, and no one but God knows what's best for that tiny person. So all we can do is give him back to God and ask God for wisdom.

So maybe"excited" isn't the most precise word. But I would say I'm contentedly expectant. My hands are open. I'm ready to receive.