Good News!

It’s been eleven months – almost a year – since I created this blog.

In the first three months, I wrote about ten posts. There was momentum, I was working hard, and I felt I was making real progress. Then, in the eight months that followed, I posted about five times in total. That’s a lot less than I’d like to admit. True, we produced two booklets in that time, which took from what might have been writing time. But the real reason for the break is something else.

We have news!

You see, thank G-d, we are expecting again.

I am back in that same place as when this all began, in that third trimester of pregnancy, and this time with not three but four little souls already under my care.

This project is constantly on my mind, as the unresolved questions and fragmented ideas float around my head, teasing me with their potential for development. I yearn to make sense of this path that is my life, to lay it all out neatly in the chapters I’ve sketched out for the book I ultimately hope to write.

But the realities of my life have precluded that for now. These days, it’s been harder for me to focus and do what’s needed to investigate, research, and work out my thoughts. Pregnancy does that somehow, muddling my brain and playing with my hormones so that what used to be a matter of time-management and determination now takes so much more, making it much less realistic for me to write in the time that I have.

I am not complaining; it is clear to me that when G-d will want me to continue this project, he will give me the ability to do so. Now, it seems, he wants me to focus on my kids, my regular work… and maybe to learn to relax a bit?

The project will continue, G-d willing, only for now at a slower, perhaps less predictable pace.

As for now, I’d like to reflect now on what I’ve learned so far, and what’s changed since I was last in this place.

Similar place, different person

Once again, I am about seven months pregnant. My body feels much like it did last time around: heavy, tired, sometimes achy and unwieldy – but thank G-d, in good health overall. The housework is challenging, and once again there are all those things I can’t do so easily anymore. (Add to that the writing of this blog, which is so close to my heart.)

The difference lies more in my spirit.

This time, I am not questioning. I am not wondering if I am making a good choice nor complaining about my situation. I don’t feel bad for myself for even a second.

In fact, I was out with my family today once again, enjoying another of New York’s beautiful parks, yet when my husband noted to me the looks we were getting, I was unaffected. I knew how we appear, with our four tiny kids in and around the stroller and another clearly on the way. But unlike a short year ago, the questions and doubts of these strangers were not reflected inside me, and so their stares meant little.

These days, I am confident and grateful. I count my blessings constantly, look at my children and marvel at the beautiful people that they are, and thank G-d that I have been blessed to carry another one up to this point. I have no doubt that this is what He wants from me, that it is not a burden I am carrying but a channel for more blessing, and that every member of my family and community will only gain with the arrival of our additional child, with the help of G-d, at the right time.

What’s been accomplished

I have not yet resolved all the issues and questions that I brought up. But I have solidified my confidence in the mitzva that we are fulfilling with each of our beautiful children. I have deepened my trust that G-d will provide us with everything we need to raise them, and that, as the third but most important partner in the birth of each child, His plans are faultless.

I know that I am not expected to be perfect, nor is my family. And perhaps most of all, this new mindset has allowed me to proactively discover practical solutions to the things we struggle with, rather than determine that it’s not possible to make it work. And it’s taught me the power of positivity in truly changing your life.

I’d love to hear if anything I’ve posted has made an impression on you too, whether you’d comment or message me privately it would mean a lot.

I look forward to continuing to develop more ideas together, but meanwhile, I’ll be investing my energies in my children and in making my home the healthiest, happiest place it can be. For ultimately more than anything else I might accomplish in my lifetime, that is what matters most.

Xx

Chaya