Lindsey Gendke

It’s finally starting to hit me: my baby is going to be here in just a few months. And I’m starting to feel a little panicky.

I thought I was doing well, keeping emotions in check. At least, it didn’t feel like I was any more emotional than usual. I’ve always been one to cry easily at a movie scene, or even a melody. So when I find tears welling up these days, I don’t necessarily blame pregnancy.

The exhaustion, though. That has to be pregnancy’s fault, right? Or maybe just an incidental collision of events piling up all at once?

Two Thursdays ago, life went haywire. It started with my doctor’s appointment, where I learned I was having a baby boy! It progressed to the ICU, where my father-in-law was having high-risk emergency surgery. Then it opened onto the waiting room, where I was furiously typing up last changes to my first memoir draft because, wouldn’t you know it, that day was also my deadline with my editor. Later that day found me trekking up to the airport to pick up my mom, who was spending the weekend with us.

During that visit, I was still trying to piece together my syllabus and assignments for the new class I was hired to teach just one week prior. And to top it off, that same weekend I hosted a women’s prayer retreat at my house to launch the last three-month Straight 2 the Heart prayer group before baby comes.

Mix in some family problems that arose after the weekend, which took my focus completely away from the class I had to teach and the writing I should have been doing, and you have the makings of a very edgy pregnant lady.

This week some friends kindly dropped off some baby things, and now I find the guest bedroom (where my college-age niece stays on Tuesday nights) being dismantled by my hubby, who suddenly got the crawl to work on the nursery. His “crawls” come in spurts, though, so he typically tears up something only to leave it in disarray for days, weeks, or months.

Today I came home from my writers’ group to find him laid up with a headache, the baby room/guest room in no better shape than before I left, and all of a sudden, I’m on the brink of tears because I don’t know where to sit down and just do some of the personal writing I haven’t had energy to do for several weeks. Suddenly there is no room in my house that can accommodate me because every room has a problem we’ve put off fixing for all the years we’ve lived here. The baby room has just put me over the top.

Suddenly I’m feeling like I’ll never have a room to myself again. I just want one room, darn it, that I can control. But the mess created by living human beings constantly intrudes on my desired place of sanctuary. My office, for instance, doubles as the dining room, and any time we have company, I have to interrupt my creative process to clear space.

Woe is me, right? What a problem. It’s hardly a problem. We have a very large house, and with some reorganization, we can figure this out. (As you know from previous posts like this one, and this one, I just happen to detest things like cleaning and organization.) What is the real problem, then?

Maybe I feel life surging too suddenly out of control, and I fear that, after baby, there will be no going back. He will be a wonderful, blessed addition to our lives. Just…how will I handle it all?

Like I’ve handled everything else, I will handle it with my Father’s help. I will handle it by letting Him handle it. I’m sure everything will be fine.

After such a crazy couple of weeks, maybe I just needed to get a little emotional. I needed to remember I don’t always have to hold it together as if these emotions are not ransacking my body and mind. I needed to pray, and write, and even cry a little.

Tonight I came to the library to find a clear desk space on which to clear my head, and now I feel better already.

Ready or not, I say, “Bring on the baby!”