We Do Memories
We Do Therapy Thursdays. It is always a surprise! Even to us.
Scott was always willing to do whatever jobs he could find to support us—
even dressing up as Santa for friends who owned a photography shop.
By our second Christmas, I was expecting our first child and this was our version of
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
We were excited, but a baby had not been in our plans and it took me some time to realize I was pregnant. I leave you with the story of how miraculous it felt to be expecting my first child as Christmas approached. I understand this better than when I included this story in A Brave Life, but the miraculous part is even more real to me now that I fully know my story. We were afraid to be parents and excited all at the same time.
Why was I so clueless regarding pregnancy? There’s no real explanation.
One afternoon while teaching kindergarten, nap time found me in an exhausted daze. I decided to “rest” on the big pillow in the book corner and later awoke with a start when a father arrived to pick up his child. Wiping the drool off my face and trying to regain composure, I filled the air with profuse apologies.
Sometime later, after announcing my pregnancy, that same father came to me and asked, “You know when you fell asleep during nap time?”
How could I forget?
“I knew you were pregnant then. There’s just no tired like a pregnant woman.”
Every woman who remembers the pathological exhaustion during pregnancy says amen! I appreciated his compassionate understanding.
Soon after this sleeping and drooling episode, while sitting out in the sun to put some color into my pale skin before being a bridesmaid in a wedding, the exhaustion overcame me again. Heading for the house, knowing how easily my fair skin might burn, I barely got inside the sliding glass door before curling up on the floor, and succumbing once again to the exhaustion. Scott arrived home from work and found me passed out on the floor.
“Janyne! Are you OK?”
Poor guy. What a scare. But this level of exhaustion baffled me.
On our first anniversary, we went to Disneyland and rode all the rides with “Do Not Ride if Pregnant” signs. During the Electrical Parade, I had to acquiesce and sit on the ground right in the middle of the crowd. Pregnancy still didn’t occur to me as the cause. Then one day I happened to mention to a friend’s mother about a weird brown spot on my forehead.
“Let me see that,” she said. After a short inspection of the spot, she proclaimed, “Janyne! You’re pregnant!”
Suddenly, it all made sense. And best of all, the impossible was possible. Surely God did love me!
My uncharacteristically full-bosomed look at the wedding required alterations after my pre-ordered dress arrived. I crammed myself into the “We’ve adjusted it as large as we can” dress which never fit again. If the awareness of pregnancy had continued to evade me, how would I have explained the tight bodice?
As Christmas approached, being pregnant felt no less a miracle than the birth of Jesus. Becoming a mother terrified me but also made me determined to be the mother this child needed—the mother I didn’t have.
Oh yes, this child was a gift. And absolutely wanted!
Today concludes this portion of the We Do Therapy Series. Thank you for following along on our eclectic adventures. Thursdays will continue to be my “wild card” day, just not connected to this series.