.39 weeks.

All Photo credit: Jason Albus Photography

39 weeks. <1 week. 6 days. Until D day. Of course, Atlas hung in there for >41 weeks…

I feel myself pulling inward. Reflective. Capturing traces of energy to reserve for the day Lake decides she is ready. And I really, really can’t wait for that day- when I get to meet my daughter. I can’t believe she’s almost here!! My sweet girl.

Fears about birth still trickle across my conscious, and I do my best to let them drip away. Trusting, all will be well.

The last weeks of pregnancy always feel surreal to me. Carrying every moment with a kind of fleeting savor. As when you catch a shadow of the light and leaves dancing on a wall, in the gentle, golden, light of morning. Hanging on the cinematic scene that has organically appeared, until the sunlight shifts and carries the picture away. Moments where time is still. Noticed, but ungraspable.

Maybe it’s the way everyone says,

“This could be the last time I see you before she comes.”

Maybe it’s my own thoughts,

“This could be the last time we eat dinner as the three of us. This could be the last time I wash my hair. This could be the last time I kiss Atlas goodnight as my only child. This could be the last time I ever sleep. This could be the last time I have a cup of hot coffee.”

An expectancy imminent. Like Christmas morning for a child. No concept of time, just an inherit knowing, that something unknown and wonderful is coming. Like watching the reflection of the tinsel catch the light in Atlas’ eyes. Every moment before the awaited moment, feels equally magnetic.

Knowing that it could be tomorrow, or Friday or ten days from then… when she will be in my arms. That everything as I know it, as we know it, will shift. Unwrapping the most miraculous little treasure. Blowing up our perceived capacity to love, again.

Getting to have our friend and wedding photographer shoot us nearly four years to the day of our wedding, gave me all the feels. How much can happen. How life grows. How love carries us. How we grasp time with tradition and memory.

Feeling extra grateful and thrilled for this season.

(Pictured Above: Annual forage of the cedar tree from the ranch)

Simultaneously, I’ve never felt so exhausted. And I know it hasn’t even begun. Moving the last month, with a toddler and this belly. Woof.

But we manifested space, we created room and I guess it’s called growing pains for a reason. Extra thankful for an incredible husband, friends and family that have supported my self exploration and growth this year. For the people that have helped me, that have reassured me that help is okay to accept and receive.

Hoping as you reflect back on your year, you seize those cinematic flickers of time for your life reel.

Hopefully, you created an especially awesome year, and you’ll be embracing those remnant feelings of stretching. Places where you expanded, grew, and lengthened. Those are the best times. The years your soul remembers.