What am I waiting for?

I have been covered by a heaviness lately that is so pervasive that I don't even notice its presence unless it lifts. Then I can feel a brief lightness. I find myself singing and smiling and acting silly. Yet unnoticed it returns. I walk slower with weighted steps. I do not pay heed to the sunshine. I long to lie down and close my eyes.

Partly it is physical. My persistent "morning sickness" has turned to mourning sickness and back again. I do not know the condition of my pregnancy, whether the baby I am carrying has passed from this life or continues on. My midwife has suggested that waiting is the best course of action. Any tests that find me to be pregnant or that show a heartbeat can be falsely encouraging. Yes, there may be a heartbeat today, but there is a small likelihood that this will continue to be a viable pregnancy.

My symptoms are contradictory and sporadic and no matter how much I would like to think that I know my own body, I have to admit that I do not. There is a strange wisdom that comes with pregnancy and birth and sadly, with miscarriage as well. My body has a wisdom of which my conscious mind knows nothing. Not for any of my pregnancies did I know the moment of conception, when the spark of new life ignited and that one cell began the magical process of duplicating itself. I did not know the instant of implantation, that miraculous joining of a tiny life to mine. I certainly did not predict the time that my body would begin contractions and force my child from my womb. No more did I anticipate the cramping and bleeding that signaled the beginnings of a miscarriage. I know nothing about it, yet it is me. It is my body doing these things. It is not making a mistake neither is it confused. It is doing just what it needs to do.

I cannot will my baby to live. I cannot will the miscarriage to complete itself. I do not even know which I should be hoping for at this point.

"I hear you are expecting."
"Yes, I am expecting. But I know not what to expect."

I suppose all of my life is like this. My body is doing millions of things every second over which I have no conscious control. I am integrally connected to this world by a physical body. It is not just a cage for my spirit, it is me.

The Apostles Creed states "I believe... in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." We are this flesh and this blood. We need it to be complete. It carries in it wisdom put there by God the Creator. Sin has marred it all but the wisdom of the Creator shines through in the magic of pregnancy, birth, and even in miscarriage. It weighs my heart with much heaviness yet I cannot help but to observe it with wonder.