An Unexpectedly Wonderful Afternoon

Late last week I was experiencing fairly painful abdominal and pelvic pain, so at my doctor's request, I headed to her office on Friday afternoon for an exam.  The exam entailed a quick ultrasound and then me being strapped to monitors for 30 minutes in a room by myself to check whether or not I was in fact having contractions and to monitor the baby's heart rate.

As the nurse was strapping me in, my mind immediately began to race about what else I could be doing during that time so as not to waste a precious minute... should I ask her to get the newspaper out of my purse so that I can catch up on the latest stories or maybe my phone so that I can go through my email or jot down a "to do" list... and then she switched the monitor on and I heard the wonderful sound of baby girl's heartbeat and thought to myself 'Am I crazy?! How often do I have the opportunity to listen to this little being inside of me?' 

So for 30 minutes, I just laid there and listened to her and loved every minute of it.  Her heart would race as I felt her doing her now seemingly constant acrobatics and then slow down for a minute as she would rest just to speed up again.  She really went nonstop and I found myself laughing at her and her antics.  And this might sound crazy, but I felt like I got a chance to learn just a little more about her in that half hour.

I constantly struggle with being present and this was just another reminder of how wonderful and rewarding it can be.  And in light of the tragic events in Boston yesterday,  I feel even more recommitted to slowing down and enjoying all of our wonderful gifts because you never know where life is going to take you.

Oh, and by the way, everything with me and the baby looked great so no need for concern.

And, because a post is not complete without a picture of Olin... I had an all day meeting at our church on Saturday, so the boys were on their own.  Here is a picture that Josh sent me of their lunch together (eating pizza, of course).  It doesn't look like this little boy missed his mommy one bit!