Accepting Help

So I'm one million months pregnant, a blessed reality of which all of you, my dear readers, are well aware. Sorry for that. Sort of.

This past weekend was my emotional due date, and when our alarm clock toddler went off at o'dark thirty on Monday morning, I may or may not have starting sobbing. Because a. I was still pregnant and b. my husband had to go back to work and we were not blissfully baby-mooning in a 5 star hospital suite eating sumptuous cafeteria fare and cuddling our angelic newborn. (Yes, I have completely lost touch with reality.)

I managed to pull it together and get a shower in before punching in for the day, but I was preeeeetty much scrabbling around on the rockiest bottom all the day long. (And the dr's appointment which included an ineffective and loathsomely titled 'membrane stripping' ... well that didn't tint my glasses any rosier, either.)

The thing is, despite my repeated efforts to suck it up, offer it up, and pick myself up...this pregnancy and motherhood thing has been really hard. And it continues to get harder. Better in some ways, yes, but definitely harder.

So this morning when my mom called and offered to take Joey for a couple of nights to let me rest, I did what any good mother would do: I said I'd think about it, which was code for 'no thank you.'

Not because I didn't need the break - I do, desperately. And not because I don't trust my mother to watch her beloved grandson who looks so exactly like my dad as a little boy he can reduce her to tears of admiration. I said I'd think about it because, honestly, what kind of a mother would I be if I had to give my child away for a couple nights in order to give myself some time off?

I'd be a smart mother.

After a few minutes of discussion with Dave, I called her back and surprised us both by heartily accepting her generous offer. And then I started packing his duffel bag. Because somewhere in the fog of hormones and emotions, in the back of my brain, I could hear Kimberly Hahn or some other venerable sage of domesticity intoning the maxim of motherhood: "Never turn down offers of help while your children are young."

So even though I feel guilty (inappropriately so), anxious (unreasonably so), and somewhat chagrined by my own perceived lack of ability to multi-task at 40 weeks pregnant (idiotically so), I'm sending the little tyke to Camp Grandparents for a 48 hour furlough, and putting my feet up for a couple of days.

And trying really, really hard not to feel bad about it. It's Easter, after all, and if I can't accept some of His lavish mercy during this holiest time of the year, then I've got bigger problems than uncontrolled swelling in my fingers and face.

I don't know if this came out as a litany of complaint or of humility, but I do know that I'm planning on spending the next few days in rest and prayer and maybe in a pedicurist's chair. Because I'm not invincible after all, it turns out. And swollen toes look better tipped in one of summer's hot pink hues, I'm told.