It's been a little while since I've updated this blog. Most everything has been on my pregnancy blog instead of this one, and life has just been busy overall. But yeah, in case you missed it, we are having a baby!!! I will be 26 weeks tomorrow. Only 99 days left! It's going to be a little girl, due on January 15, 2014. We are so in love with her already! And since everyone asks, we have picked out the name Elli Bernice. Though it may or may not change at some point if we feel it just isn't what her name is supposed to be. Colton is hard at work with a crazy busy semester and will finish up his application for the U's master of OT program next week. Interviews are in February so keep sending up prayers that he gets one. I have no doubts that he will be fine and get in but it never hurts to have more people praying. I'm just going through my second year of pharmacy school and it's flying by faster than I can even comprehend.
I mostly just wanted to post because I wanted to talk about something I have started to learn since being pregnant. It's been a hard lesson for me, and one that I wish I would have learned earlier in my life. But it is a beautiful message to understand and know now. Anyone who knows me personally probably knows that I have some body image issues (what girl doesn't in our society, right) but mine are bad. I have little to no self-esteem at times and I struggle to feel like I am good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, etc. But so many things have changed with this little life growing inside me. I have begun to realize and see my body for the incredible miracle that it truly is. It's amazing. Truly. It has the capacity to grow this little life, and provide her with everything she needs to become a whole person. It is strong, healthy. I can lift incredibly heavy objects for a women, I can hike for miles without stopping. I am working on my feet 20 hours a week, going to school full time with 18 graduate level credits, and 6 months pregnant, yet my body just keeps on going and giving me all it has to give. I walk one hour 4 days a week now, to and from class, and it just does it. It has run two half marathons in under 3 hours with no training, simply because I asked it to do so. It's always been amazing and has never let me down. So why do I hate it? HOW can I hate it? It is beautiful. It is a miracle unlike anything else in this world. And slowly, my whole world has been shifting around this concept. My body is imperfect. But I love it anyway. I love those imperfections that make me me. I love the fact that I have incredible strength and stamina that makes it possible for me to do everything I love and want to do, things that I might not be able to do if I had the perfect skinny body I used to dream of. My body has been good to me, and I want to start being as good to it as it is to me. I want to be able to instill in my daughter a love of her body. A realization of the miracle that she is, to me and otherwise. So I will still exercise, I still plan to run and train for a half-marathon next year, but it's different now. I don't want to run because maybe if I do so then I will be skinny and finally be worthy of my own love. I want to do it because I do love my body, I love it enough to treat it right. To exercise it and make it as healthy as it can be. And everything about that thought process is amazing.
So guess what? I dare you to try. To try and see your body for the miracle that it is instead of the imperfections that it has. To try and love it, because it is so good to you. It makes it possible for everything that you do and have and love to be available. I promise you that if you can do it, if you can find the miracle within yourself, your world will never be the same again.
