Today was a day that was never supposed to happen… Joey had her baby shower today. When Joey and I got married in 2002, she made it very clear that she was never going to be having a baby. She had never wanted to be a mama, never liked holding babies or had any kind of yearning to be a mom. It’s not that she didn’t like kids, she just never saw herself having any. My guess is that she had her musical dreams and having babies was fine for most women, but it just wasn’t for her. I often wondered if someday she would change her mind, but she never did.
When she married me though, she became a mother to my two girls Heidi and Hopie. That was something she accepted and embraced and gotten better at being year by year. The girls and Joey are very close now. But the lack of desire to have a baby of her own never came. But what did come, was a stronger desire to trust God with her fears.
So one day about a year and a half ago, she gave it to Him, and said “if you want us to have a baby Lord, I want what you want”. And that was it. She went off birth control and almost a year went by and though she’d have her moment’s of wanting to “take it back” from God, she remained faithful and trusting. This past June, on Father’s day to be exact, she and we found out she was pregnant.
There was immediate elation, then fear, then joy, then worry, then morning sickness and asthma and allergies. Then when she was about 5 or 6 months pregnant, it all changed. She fell in love with the idea of being pregnant, with the baby inside her and the incredible changes that her body was going through. I watched a true transformation take place. Her eyes and her heart softened and with each kick, she smiled and got more excited. And that’s how it’s been every day since then.
And here we are… with her friends showering her with love and gifts and words of advice and cupcakes and more love. I watched from the side and took pictures. And I watched her laugh with all her belly and cry with all of her heart. And when her friends had gone, and it was just us and a big table full of gifts… we laughed and we cried together. Because this day was never supposed to happen. But today, it did.
