Baby fever

I've got baby fever.

Settle down and close your jaws. I DO NOT have baby fever in my own uterus, I have baby fever for other ladies' uteruses. :) My sister is pregnant and scores of my dear girl friends are all pregnant. I am elated! I can not wait to hug on, pray over, love on, give cuddles and kisses and holdings to babies that are so beautiful and precious. Not precious because they're ugly (you know what I'm talking about....ooooh! You're baby is SO.....precious....), but rather precious because they seriously are amazing. I feel almost like I'm counting down the clock on all of these deliveries!

I was just telling my sister tonight, it is my favorite thing to love on a baby and then hand them to mom and dad and head to bed. :D It's all the fun without the same commitment that the parents had. :)

It is completely beautiful to have a baby. I don't even know how to put into words the experience of carrying a child. Feeling the flutters, then the kicks, then getting to experience the entire invasion-of-the-body-snatchers movements. It is beautiful watching your body transition and change as your baby grows. It is beautiful to experience labor. The pain and the struggle with which life is born. It is beautiful to hold your child in your arms. It is beautiful to feel the emptiness that your soul immediately feels when your child has left your body. There are no words.

Of course there are a thousand comical aspects to having a baby. The whole pooping during labor, and throwing up/nausea, and on and on. Don't even get me started on what happens where the sun doesn't shine for the next few weeks. And um...breast feeding? Seriously. Hook your breasts up to what can only be labeled as the vacuum from down under and see how long you enjoy it! :) (And don't send me hate mail. I breastfed. In fact, I also breastfed my triplets too. Talk about a dairy farm. Been there! Done that! lol)

But the sweet joy...the most amazing experiences...they come in the hard to explain moments. They come at three o'clock in the morning when this beautiful person that you love so deeply, won't stop screaming bloody murder at you and you feel like you are about to lose your mind. They come when you are breastfeeding and your child falls asleep. They come when you just stop for half a second and realize what it is that you are experiencing...you are raising LIFE! I still remember the moments when I was all alone (my husband was deployed) with my new born daughter, in the middle of the night, rocking her in the rocking chair. I remember sitting there crying and thinking in my head, "How will I ever keep you safe? I don't want you to grow up." That precious creature is now almost six years old.

Oh how my arms ache. I ache to hold all the beautiful and wonderful creatures who are soon to be coming out of their mommy's bellies. I ache to hold my little niece/nephew.

I have a tradition when the babies are born. It started with my oldest and I have continued it on with every baby. I pray a blessing over them. It's one of my favorite things to do.

Okay, I know this one's a bit sappy. But seriously...who wouldn't be!? I have a friend in labor right now! :)