I have a lot of things that are past due. The most obvious – this baby girl that’s taking her sweet time to get here 🙂 Am I miserable? Not at all. Not even a little bit.

The most obvious thing past due – this baby girl that’s taking her sweet time to get here 🙂 Am I miserable? Not at all. Being pregnant for 10 months and 6 days today physically feels the exact same as being pregnant for 10 months (40 weeks – Full term). I think it’s the mental game that gets to people. Knowing that you’re giving a date that you baby should arrive, and then seeing that day pass by with flying colors allows room for anxiety to set in. That anxiety and pressure to perform isn’t made easier by everyone asking, ‘That baby still in there?’, ‘Hurry up and have that baby!’, ‘Are you STILL pregnant??’

The obvious answer here is – yes. Look at my belly – does it look any less baby-filled? Here’s your sign. I’m pregnant. I’m not still pregnant, I’m just pregnant. There is no way to tell women exactly when their cervix will ripen (which – ew, couldn’t they have picked a different term other than comparing my lady bits to a piece of fruit!), when their body will dilate, and when the baby will start to make its journey south. Ya know what? I’m ok with that. I honestly love that I was given a due date and that I have passed that date with my head game on point!

I’ve been past due with spending fun filled days with my family that lives on the East Coast. It’s expensive to fly back to see them & to take off work. My ‘Due Date’ gave them a target to shoot for when they booked their tickets out to come visit us for a couple weeks. Because I’m “Past Due”, we’ve had 6 wonderful days together to explore the beautiful state of Washington that Brice and I have grown to love over the past 5 years. We’ve explored that places that have helped strengthen our marriage in ways that I never thought possible. Isn’t that what every parent wants to see? That their daughter is in a strong marriage that is jam packed with love, support, adventure, etc? That’s what we hope to see in our daughter’s life (in a few decades of course 😉 )

Starting from the beginning our days have been filled with birthday celebrations, church family gathering & dinner, Northwest Trek, PARKWAY & friends, Seattle, Pikes Market, Space Needle, Ballard Locks & Dams, Fremont Troll, Point Defiance, Owens Beach, Rainiers Baseball, Glass Museum, Downtown Tacoma Farmers Market, Tacoma Antiques, showing off my office space & friends, Mt. Rainier National Park, Proctor Shopping, Point Defiance Zoo, Rooftop Grilling, and lots of coffee, tea, & ice cream! We have been having such a blast and I’m loving the concentrated time with my fam that I haven’t had in years. These explorations would not have been the same if baby girl had come on her due date. These are just some of the things that make me happy about being past due.

I have also been past due on sharing about Brice. I have no idea what I would do without that man. Over the past 10 months, our marriage has grown and our bond has been strengthened beyond belief. We’ve been married for 8 years now and I can’t imagine having a baby together before now. Within the past year, we have been trying to focus on strengthening our foundation in Christ and in one another. I say Christ first because if we didn’t love a God who loves us unconditionally, we would have been divorced so many times I’d have lost count. We’ve learned to accept love and love one another the way God loves us. He doesn’t hold grudges, He is patient, He is kind. He is love and as we’ve all heard at a wedding at some point – “Love is patient & kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It doesn’t demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” I have never really understood this type of love until this year.

That’s not to say that we haven’t loved each other in previous years at all, but I have definitely been proud, impatient, jealous, irritable, held grudges, given up, and felt like I can’t be married anymore. Today, it’s the total opposite. A few months ago, Brice and I were sitting on the floor throwing the ball back and forth hoping Sharma would play and we started talking. Brice told me that he loves a different woman now than the woman he loved on the day we got married. Of course – I was confused. He said he’s loved many different women during our marriage. After an awkward pause with my face, I’m sure, looking so confused & probably a bit angry, he said – “Beka, you are a different woman today than you were 8 years ago. You’ve changed and evolved over the years and I love every woman you’ve become. I love you today and I’m so excited to see you grow as a mother. I can’t imagine loving you more than right now, but I know I will.” As the tears rolled down my face, I knew he meant every word he said. I sat there knowing that in a few short sentences, Brice had perfectly described my feelings towards him as well.

I’m past due on telling the world how amazing this man is and how lucky our little girl is to have him as her father. Brice has made a point every day during pregnancy to tell me how beautiful or sexy I look. When I’m pulling up my maternity pants that could practically tuck under my boobs, I turn away from him to shield my, in my opinion, ‘unsexiness’. He, without a stutter, will say, “Don’t turn away, you’re so sexy! I want to see all of you!” He’s flattered me even more as I’ve gotten bigger in the past few weeks. And the thing is, it’s true & genuine. When I start to feel a bit insecure about myself & question the validity of his statements, he makes a point to squash those insecurities immediately so my mind doesn’t have time to focus on the lies I’m telling myself.

He’s cleaned our house from top to bottom (in our case, front to back), he’s helped me get out of bed in the middle of the night to pee, he’s made me dinner when I’m tired, he’s encouraged me to relax, he’s drawn me bubble baths without me ever asking, he’s brought me tea in bed, he’s researched all the crazy baby things so I don’t have too (it totally helps that he’s really good at it and geeks out about stuff), he’s brought me flowers at work when I’ve had a rough day, he’s helped calm me down when I’ve been upset, he’s stroked my face when I wake up crying from a bad baby dream and lovingly shared everything will be alright, he pricked his own finger first and hard when I was terrified of Gestational Diabetes and then held my hand as it shook from nervousness when I had to prick myself for the first time, he’s has been and will continue to be my rock.

We’ve definitely had a few arguments about how we should do/prepare things, what we should know, and how we should raise our baby but Brice said it best in our pregnancy class. The class was about family/home support and discussing what type of support system we had in place. When it was Brice’s turn to speak he share – “We definitely don’t agree 100% on every decision, but we know that at the root of every decision is our love for one another. If we get in an argument, it doesn’t mean that we love each other less afterward. Our love for each other is the rock and isn’t dependant on us agreeing with each other. At the end of the day or argument, I love Beka and she loves me – even if we don’t see eye to eye.”

For all of the reasons listed above – I don’t care if this baby comes today or 10 days from now. I have an amazing husband who loves me and is anxious to meet our little girl. We’re surrounded by incredible family & friends who want to serve us in any way that they can. Baby B is going to come at her own pace, march to the beat of her own drum, and that’s 100% fine by me because I know when she arrives, she’ll be welcomed into a community that I’m so honored and proud to be a part of!