(My first picture with baby Elle. Not necessarily glamourous. But beautiful.)

Emerging from the cocoon of recovery, infancy, just being with Elle and getting a few hints already as to what it means to be a mother of three.

Jamie and my mom left last night. Six weeks of help, support, fun, and—as I said when Steve’s parents visited in the fall—a sense that we are being seen here in Bahrain, that our life is being witnessed. Eases the fear of isolation immediately.

Telling the stories of how our children come to us—no matter how that happens—is giving a voice to some of the most raw and primal material in our souls. While babies are brought home every day, all over the world, the expansion of a heart is no small miracle. I am witness to that. So, I thought I would tell you how Elle came to us.

As you may know from my posts, tweets, and status updates, I had quite a bit of on-again-off-again labor. On Monday, February 20, things began heating up a bit so Steve and I went to the hospital that morning to see if, indeed, it was game time.

Though I had a c-section with the twins, my OB here in Bahrain thought I would be a good candidate for a VBAC and encouraged me to do a trial of labor with this delivery to see if perhaps we could avoid the recovery of the c-section. This was exactly what I wanted.

When we arrived, I was dilated 2-3 centimeters, so the doctor checked us in. What commenced at this point was a very long, sloooooooooow labor that inched along all day Monday, all night Monday, and all day Tuesday. Painstaking. One tiny little bit at a time.

Monday night, I was still at 3 centimeters, and the contractions were increasing in intensity, including that lovely “back labor” I have heard so many good things about.

When you are trying a VBAC, one of the major risks is uterine rupture because your uterus has been previously scarred. Because of this concern, doctors do not use any kind of labor enhancing drugs (i.e. pitocin). Labor has to progress naturally without any assistance. So, I knew I couldn’t get an epidural too early as it might stall my labor and the doctor wouldn’t be able to use any drugs to stimulate it again.

Another issue in this whole equation . . . toward the end of my pregnancy, my OB began taking measurements of the baby through ultrasound. As babies do, especially babies in my family, she kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. My doctor would measure and re-measure and would shake her head in disbelief. “No, this cannot be right,” and she would measure again.

As Steve is fond of saying, my family stock is comprised of “rawhide and rebar” and we build ‘em big, so I wasn’t surprised whatsoever. But this was cause for concern for my doctor as she wasn’t sure I’d be able to deliver a baby that was measuring in the 9-10 pound range. Still, we were both willing to give it a try.

As Monday night, Februrary 20 turned into Tuesday morning—and that special friend “back labor” had kept me up all night—my doctor arrived and gave me the good news I had progressed to 4.5-5 centimeters. Thank you, sweet Jesus.

But then things slowed again. Miserably. Slow, slow, slow. Steve and I walked the halls, etching a path in those floors from lap after lap. Trying to get things going. After hours of walking and breathing, my doctor gave me the disappointing news that I hadn’t progressed. It looked like we were headed downstairs for surgery.

I asked for one more hour, and she agreed. But she told me I couldn’t walk any more. I needed to preserve energy. So I laid down on my side—which was truly uncomfortable—and wouldn’t you know, those contractions started intensifying again. My doctor came back one hour later and announced I was 6-7 and it was time to go to the labor room and get my epidural. Again, thank you sweet Jesus.

Every step of the way, I was trying to hold space for both a c-section and the VBAC. I was trying to remember that no matter what we plan in these types of situations, there are elements beyond our control, and I was trying to keep in mind that a healthy baby was my #1 priority (not my birth agenda).

My desire was to accomplish the VBAC, but once we got to the labor room, everything slowed again, and I never progressed past 7 centimeters. My doctor broke my water to see if that would help. But it didn’t. She gave me time to see if that would help. But it didn’t. She even considered putting an itsy bitsy bit of pitocin in my IV just to give me that little bit of umph that I needed. But, in the end, it was too big of a risk.

The other major factor was that the baby’s head never came down and engaged, so there was risk of cord prolapse, which is hugely dangerous.

In the end, sometime in the afternoon on Tuesday, February 21, after about 30 hours of labor and a solid effort, my doctor took my hand and told me it was time to go downstairs for surgery.

I was disappointed; I won’t lie. I had prepared myself for the c-section earlier, but it looked like the VBAC was going to happen there for a moment. Letting go of what could be and embracing what is . . . joy and grief and relief and concern . . . all teetering on one moment. Of course, I cried.

Also in the tears was the news that I would have to get general anesthetic for the c-section (hospital policy after getting an epidural) and Steve would not be able to be with me for the delivery. Just not how you picture things happening—neither parent really present for the birth.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a haze, in pain, and my doctor holding my hand—her long black hair against her emerald green scrubs. “We made the right decision,” she said to me. “The baby was even bigger than we thought and you would have had trouble delivering her shoulders.”

“How big?” I asked.

“4.77 kilos,” she laughed. “That’s 10 pounds, 8 ounces.”

The next thing I remember is Steve coming in and showing me pictures of the baby on his phone. As soon as they brought her out of delivery, he went with her to be cleaned up and weighed and measured. I didn’t wake up until she was about 3 hours old, and by that time, she was already upstairs, so I still hadn’t held her yet.

Steve slid pictures across his phone and I started sobbing. Like, loud, uncontrolled, gutted sobs. She was so big and pink and beautiful. And he just let me lay there and sob while he flicked through the pictures again and again.

What followed was six days in the hospital, and it took every last hour of that time for me to feel like I could even think about going home.

The day after she was born, Steve wheeled her isolette to the foot of my bed so I could see her little fat face and he said, “We need to decide on her name.” I looked at her for a full hour while we went back through our list. Finally, we chose Elle (pronounced “L”). Stay tuned for a post about her name.

In her, we have been given something so much more significant than I could have ever imagined. She is a longing fulfilled, a prayer answered, a life.

When I miscarried earlier last year, I wrote that something was silenced deep inside me, like a mute button had been pushed. The loss and the grief and the shock taking away any kind of words.

I find myself silenced again. Like Someone has turned down my ability to explain it all and has turned up my ability to just experience it.

I have snapshots of Indian, Sri Lankan, Filipina, and Bahraini women floating in and around us all, caring for us, comforting us, giving us a strong start with baby Elle. Through language barriers and cultural differences we brought a child into the world. The most beautiful little girl . . . who, incidentally, looked so big and so white in that hospital nursery.

Thank you to all of you who prayed, hoped, believed. Grateful does not even begin to cover it.

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My contractions have been intermittent for some time now. Starting. Stopping. Starting. Stopping. At first this all feels exciting. And then, after a couple of weeks of on-again-off-again, and then a couple of days of really-intense-and-then-nothing, I realize that the entire process begins to take a toll.

I’ve mentioned a book by Sue Monk Kidd before – When the Heart Waits – and it’s a beautiful book on the spiritual art of waiting. I opened it this morning, and was surprised again by how rich her story is. Like having a spiritual director on every page.

She has an entire chapter on “Concentrated Stillness,” which is a beautiful phrase and such a counter-intuitive posture for us human kind. Kidd opens the chapter with a quote by Meister Eckhart: “Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.” Lovely.

For me, these moments before childbirth have carried a restless stillness. One I find myself resisting and embracing all at the same time.

As my friend Jean says, “you’re in the tunnel.” The broad horizon of life narrows and these days become concentrated in their focus. The nesting is done. The details are done. Even the baby-building is done. Now, it is the waiting.

Waiting time can feel like wasted time because, by nature, it’s not all that productive. But this has been good for me. Playing lots of Scrabble with my mom and Jamie. Cooking. Going out to Café Lilou. Resting every day. Letting life slow. Embracing the tunnel. Being.

Feels foreign and familiar at the same time. Like this is the appropriate rhythm and, yet, also a little twilight zone-y.

Is this what Eckhart meant? Stillness is a God-space. These times of concentrated stillness are kairos moments, and that is why they feel both profound and entirely unproductive. Otherworldly.

Settling into stillness is what today is about for me. And maybe tomorrow, too. I’ve been assured this won’t all go on forever (though you reach a point when you truly believe you will be pregnant for the rest of your life). Allowing myself to step off the treadmill of trying. Slowing down to a crawl and letting myself process the resistances that surface. Admitting my self-worth doesn’t hinge on what I can produce in a day. Unhooking what I do from who I am. Concentrated stillness. A good gift.

Are you in a season of stillness? How have you responded?

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Before I could do anything else today, I needed to sit down and write this:

In May I told you that I had met with an agent (and his lovely wife) who had expressed interest in representing me for my second book. Woohoo! I finished my proposal, emailed it to him, moved around the world, and waited.

Very recently, it became clear that the proposal is in need of “some tweaks” if it is to become a book, in need of clarity in a few places. I understand this to be a completely valid part of the process, but did I mention I’m 100 months pregnant, practically requiring pulleys and levers to even get in and out of my bed at this point?

I think it is a universal truth that the last month of pregnancy is no time for finding clarity on anything.

Additionally, I’ve been through “this” before. Found Art kept coming apart at the seams when I was trying to get it written. Just a real mess at many moments in the process. In the middle of the initial draft, I found out I was pregnant with Luke and Lane. No problem, I thought, I’ll be done with this thing long before the babies are born.

Of course, I wasn’t.

In many ways, I had only just begun. And when L&L were born, the book still hadn’t totally come together. In fact, my editor, Angela, and I agreed that I would just take a little break, have the babies, and get back to the writing when I could.

I began to refer to the manuscript as “Angela’s Ashes.”

When the babies were 3 weeks old, I got back to it. Not because anyone was forcing me to but because I needed to. I needed to finish the project that I had been carrying for over four years. I needed closure. I needed to know that motherhood wasn’t a dream that had swallowed up my other dreams. When the babies were 3 months old, I turned in a completely revised draft of the book. I’ll always believe that while that was one of the most intense seasons of my life, the writing really did save me.

But it took me a long time to sleep all that off.

Now, on the absolute eve of birthing another not-so-Tiny Tank, I wonder how this book #2 project is going to unfold. I’ve found I don’t like going into childbirth with any loose ends.

In the midst of all this, an amazing blog, has just gone viral and has set the four corners of the world abuzz (including my corner of the world). And while she (who is beyond fabulous, by the way) posts pictures of visiting agents in New York in her new outfit from Nordstrom, waiting to weigh out potential offers from publishers, I’m waddling and glowering and trying to resist the urge to say, “I quit. I’m outta the game.”

As if there were only room for one more book in the world. As if there were only room for one more voice.

I’ve spent the last 24 hours feeling ever so slightly sorry for myself. I see how small that’s making me feel, and I believe grace is so much bigger.

Before I do anything else today, I’m stepping into the confessional and asking to be power-washed of the lies. Because I want right now to be about space and freedom.

I’ll end with a prayer:

God, I want to trust you.

I could use some help with that.

Amen.

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I’ve just returned from another doctor’s appointment. Been able to spy on Baby Sister inside my belly through the magic of that ultrasound machine.

Everything this time around feels unknown.

With the twins, I knew I was having a c-section because Lane was breech, and my doctor was not comfortable delivering any other way with that presentation (not that there are that many other options). I didn’t know when the delivery was going to happen, but I showed up to the hospital for a routine non-stress test that they had me doing a couple times a week. The nurse, as usual, checked the amniotic fluid levels, and announced that she wanted a doctor to take a look because they were a little on the low side from last visit.

The doctor came in a few minutes later, took one look at me and said, “How far along are you?”

“38 weeks and 5 days,” I said. Because when you’re carrying multiples, you know exactly how far along you are. You are constantly aware of how important it is to keep those babies in as long as possible.

“I think you’ve made it far enough,” she says.

And that’s how I knew the babies were going to be born that day, December 23, 2008. I delivered them at Mary Birch Hospital in San Diego, the same hospital where Linsey had delivered Hunter and Tina had delivered Trevor. Familiar.

Now, it’s all different. Different hospital. Different doctor. Different country. According to the ultrasounds, she is measuring XL, so the doctor is still on the fence as to how Baby Sister is going to exit my body exactly. So I’m not sure what kind of delivery I’m preparing for. Not sure how I’ll tolerate labor. Not sure what we’re in for at this different hospital in this different country. Just generally not sure.

And, the greatest of all unknowns, not sure how I’ll do as a mother of 3. Yowza. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe that we’re going to have 3 kids.

My initial crossover into motherhood was not perfectly blissful for me—which I have carried no small amount of shame over—and I have felt this impending anxiety about returning back to the haze that hovered over me for many of the early months of L&L’s life. I’m so scared of going back to that place—where life felt like I couldn’t lift it.

I’m scared of feeling all that all over again. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I’ve been trying to bring these concerns to Jesus, to share my thoughts on the matter and to confess my uneasiness/panic. And here’s what I felt like he’s given me . . . out of the blue . . . a little something to hold on to:

Trey is my younger brother and the 3^rd child in my family. He is charming and funny and a joy. He’s my brother but he’s also my friend. I admire his ability to take it easy, relax, chill, let go, calm down. He brings this cool breeze in the door with him that wins everyone over. I just love him.

Every time I start to get scared about how we’re going to integrate Baby Sister into this already-mess, I think about Trey and I think about what our family would have been like without him.

I’m not saying Baby Sister is going to be a replica of Trey. I have no idea what she’s going to be like. But I think God has just been trying to offer me a little teaser. What if we hadn’t had Trey? Life in the Miller household would have been much more serious, much more spun up. Even today, what would we do without his ease, his carefree charm, his wit.

So I’ve been trying to trade in my anxiety lately for anticipation. What will BS bring to our family of four that we would have never experienced without her? What kind of quirky zest will she add to the mix? What might we experience that only she could have given us eyes for?

I can’t wait to find out.

While these thoughts don’t erase every last bit of unease, they do help me to focus on abundance instead of scarcity right out of the gates. Instead of dwelling on what will be diminished by adding another child; this is my invitation to dwell on what might be gained.

Thank you, God, for Trey. He is a prince. And thank you for BS, whoever she may be.

Looking forward to meeting you, little girl.

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As it is still January, and I am still reading New Years posts from others and thinking through how I myself might want 2012 to look and feel, I am brought back to the wisdom/warning that it doesn’t so much matter how I want this year to look if I’m not willing to look at today.

This is something I’ve had to tackle as a writer—sitting down on a very consistent basis and getting a bit of work done. Sometimes the work that is done is barely perceptible, with little sense of accomplishment. Sometimes the work that is done is terrible. And in the face of that knowledge I have to choose to sit down again and begin again and keep beginning again. Hideous. Yet, at the end of a week, a month, and a year, there it is . . . all documented in words: some strange kind of sprawling progress. Raw material. Something I could have never just spit out in a weekend binge writing session. Movement. Healing.

This is the truth I am taking with me into 2012: the great importance of today.

One of the things I really love about the 12-step program is its emphasis on today. Breaking life down into a series of todays keeps us from getting overwhelmed by the prospect of having to sustain anything (i.e. sobriety) for an entire week, month, or year. Just for today. And it keeps us from living in the delusion that I will – sometime this year/at some point in my life – do such and so and really change things for good: i.e. lose weight, begin writing, read more, watch less TV, drink less, walk more, get my emotional health under control, etc. This is the thinking that allows us just enough wiggle room to sabotage our best intentions.

Goals/resolutions are a necessary and important part of life, but they are impotent without a firm root in today. It doesn’t matter what I set out to accomplish this year if I don’t have a sense of how I will reorder my today.

Am I willing to start today—even if that means fumbling and stumbling a bit?

How might my decisions today begin a trajectory and a momentum that I could build on?

What choices do I have today?

I’m hopeful that this will be a writing year for me. Not so much in terms of just producing something but because I know that when I am writing consistently, I am more of a whole person. I also know that I will be birthing a baby in the next few weeks. Balancing mothering and writing never works perfectly. And yet, if I try to take all that in right now, I’m overwhelmed and stuck before I even open my computer. But if I can think about today . . . the little bit of work that I can do today . . . even without a perfect sense of how it’s all going to come together, at the very least, I’ve put some words down. And I will always be better for wringing out my soul a bit.

Tolkein has the dazzling line that says, “Not all who wander are lost.” I love this because it reminds me that wandering is a part of the gig. I can’t map out a perfect strategy from beginning to end for most things in my life. Especially the things that really matter. And that doesn’t mean I’m lost as a result. What it means is that the mess is often the magic. And I also take that to mean that I might need to get my hands in the mess – today – instead of waiting for the perfectly clear path to present itself.

What we do in the messy, wandering, trenches of today matters. So I guess I’m encouraging myself, and hopefully you too, to consider how your dreams might intersect with today. And in doing so, we might roll up our sleeves and get to work even if the path is not perfectly lit.

Sometimes all we’ve been given is fog lights when what we were hoping for/waiting for was high beams. But if we’ll commit to what’s right in front of us, we can make a long journey with just a little lit at a time.

Here’s to today.

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