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Saturday, April 07, 2007

In Love


(painting by Gustav Klimt)

As I grow older, I'm learning that there are many ways to fall in love. And many ways to end up there without realizing it. 10 weeks ago, I found out I was pregnant, and before I realized it, I was in love. The object of my affection didn't have a name. Didn't have any limbs. Barely had a brain. But it had a heart. A little beat flickering across a static screen.

I didn't realize I loved it, and this is the strangest thing about falling. Sometimes, you never feel the descent. Not until something grabs you on the way.

Four weeks ago, I started bleeding, and it wouldn't stop. I sat in the obstetrician's office turning my face away from the people around me. Turning my eyes toward my purse, pretending like I was rummaging for a cell-phone, a granola bar, when really I was rummaging for my heart.

In the doctor's room, while I waited as nurses came and went, I dissolved into a puddle of tears on the ultrasound table. This is the love you feel from fear.

Then there is the love you feel from relief. The tears that slide down your cheek as you watch your little baby wiggle on the ultrasound, waving it's head and arms at you from the screen. "Spare your tears, Christin," said the doctor. "Your baby's fine, but I want you to stay home for two weeks."

So I stayed home for two weeks. I laid in bed thinking to myself, "All I have to do today is grow a baby." I didn't go to work. I stayed home and watched cheesy movies. Soon the bleeding stopped, I entered my second trimester and the world seemed right again. "I'm doing great!" I thought. "At last everything is okay."

There is another kind of love on our descent. This love is borne on the wings of imagination, and while you are still falling you at least feel the exhilaration of wind whipping through your hair. I began to imagine what was growing inside me. I imagined a little face with eyes that light up when it sees a sparkly necklace. I imagined the music of a new name echoing through the apartment.

I had two weeks of this kind of love. And then the bleeding began again. I am still pregnant, but now I'm on bedrest until several weeks after delivery.

Why do we call it falling? Why isn't it rising in love? Expanding in love? Growing in love?

It's falling, because there is a place along the way where your heart looses it's gravity. That frightening, free-floating second when you wonder if you'll ever feel safe again.

Yes, love is a descent. The world rushes up while we go down -- down into a wonderous oblivion of hope.

11 Comments:

Blogger Nick Benoit said...

Prayer is our greatest hope. We call out to the heavens, revealing our greatest fears, our desires, our dreams, our failures, and all manner of things which life brings to us. And in that conversation, that language, we hope that our Father will be moved. We hope that God will see us, and see our reliance upon him, and our supplication and move in us, through us, and around us. In him alone can we have hope, and in him alone do we have power.

Congratulations. Karen and I will be praying with you.

8:41 AM  
Blogger Dave & Lynnette Mason said...

Tin, you are in our thoughts and prayers. We love you heaps! Rest in the thought that God does have everything in His hands & under control.

11:04 AM  
Blogger Amy said...

oh, Christin...this is perhaps one of the most beautiful pieces I have seen from you. I rejoiced and nearly wept and rejoiced again right with you...of course, being also pregnant, that could be slightly influenced by hormonal emotions as well :)

seriously, I'm SO happy for you, and, I really do love the way you wrote about this so beautifully! the prose was nearly as stunning as the news it told! I pray that God will keep you and that baby safe in the palm of His hand. when is your new arrival expected?

6:32 AM  
Blogger Christin said...

Nick, that is a beautiful reminder of what prayer is. Thank you for sharing it with me.

L&D, Thanks! Hopefully we'll be in NB this Christmas with a Taylor Tot. It would be great to see you.

Amy, Thank you sister! I'm so glad that your pregnancy is going well! And I'm so happy to join you on this journey. The Taylor Tot is due October 10th. Strange how all of the ups and downs have made me feel so uncertain, so unable to count on anything. I wait for this baby with baited breath, with tenuous hope.

5:09 PM  
Blogger Annie Els said...

Well, at least now you can (without guilt) sleep until the park becomes your home.

2:09 PM  
Blogger tonymyles said...

How cool is it to taste of unconditional love in this way? No matter what this child does you could not love him/her any more, nor any less.

11:08 AM  
Blogger Kristi "Fields" Stewart said...

Tin,

Thank you for sharing your trial with us. This is beauty in its simplest form. I will be praying for you, Dwayne, and your precious baby.

6:42 AM  
Blogger . said...

Congratulations! I'll be praying for the health of you and the Taylor Tot! Bedrest? BTDT! I'll be praying for no cabin fever. :)

Wait till you experience one of the upcoming levels of falling in love.... With each of my kids, I had an explosion of love at the moment I first saw them and held them in my arms! Once again, the term "falling in love"—I felt as if I was falling into their eyes!

Looking forward to hearing more news!

Oh, yeah! I stopped by because I'm sending out a quick note that I'm back blogging on a (semi)regular basis.

2:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congratulations! Very awesome news, and wonderfully written.

Just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that Erik Fisher & Rob Swingle are both right. Check out the podcast at http://www.bothright.com We’re 2 late 20 somethings having arguments about movies, music, family life, the daily grind, politics, religion, and all the other stuff too taboo to talk about. It's quick, fun, and opinionated. We can take it.

11:37 AM  
Blogger rebekah said...

beautifully expressed.
miss you.
praying.

3:49 PM  
Blogger kerry kind said...

Thank you, Christin for sharing your story. So self-revealing, it took us on an emotional roller coaster. You have a gift. I am grateful that you are OK and I'm praying for you. May the Lord give you Grace and fulfill your Hope and Joy.

7:33 PM  

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