August 2020

We conceived on Christmas Day, found out I was pregnant on Epiphany and my due date is September 11th. Since Japan is a day ahead, I recognize September 10th in the US as my official due date. Knowing that the average first time birth goes over by 10 days, who really cares?

These dates aside, I also realized that the timing coincided with Chris separating from active duty to transition to the Reserves, starting a job with United and moving to the US. Additionally, I would be moving a few months after him. Settling into a new job and new house and starting a renovation project. All these things seemed like a daunting, terrible time to be pregnant. Then the unexpected, the timing started to work out surprisingly well.
I got the results of my first round of blood tests stating the baby’s gender perfectly in time to plan a gender reveal with my family. While on our cross country drive from Seattle to Atlants, Mom and I stoped to visit my sister. This happened at the exact time my father was coming to visit her. A trip he’d planned months in advance. Magically, Chris had a stopover in Denver on one of his United trips. So just by divine timing, from all corners of the earth, my whole family would be in the same city for one night. A night just two days before my father’s birthday no less.

My sister and I planned a surprise birthday dinner for my father complete with a cake. The traditional celebratory birthday dessert would also act as a surprise gender reveal based on blue or pink icing. Only my sister and I knew the icing secret and neither of us knew the gender. We placed the order for the cake 48 hours in advance and I nervously waited for the dinner. I also anxiously considered the possibility that the bakery may confuse the results. The person who took my order obviously enjoyed their cannabis freedom afforded by Colorado and seemed a little confused by the request.

The night before our dinner I barely slept. Not uncommon for me since about 10 weeks into his pregnancy. When I did sleep, I dreamed vividly. Normal dinner with family followed by the cake cutting. Surprise! Blue icing lined in the interior of the cake and we celebrated the news as a family. I woke up. Finally, the day had arrived but since my dream, all my anxiety transitioned to a quiet excitement. This would also be the first time Chris and I saw each other in two months, and that emotion sort of dominated my thoughts.

There we sat, my entire immediate family together for the first time in 3 years. Brought together by random good timing, over one of our birthdays and just after the gender results were handed to me in a sealed envelope. Dinner was incredible. My brother in law knows all the best spots in Denver and staff was so cool to let us bring in our own cake and to serve it to us. We sang to my father and just before cutting into it let my parents know there was something special inside. It all unfolded just as my dream showed, this time, not so surprisingly, blue icing between delectable layers of cake confirmed my intuition. It’s a boy. I’d also seen a lot of brilliant blue’s during meditations over the previous few weeks. So I think deep down I believed it was a boy.

Then on the summer solstice and beginning of my third trimester and was struck by the divine timing of this entire adventure. I spent many moments over the past couple of years feeling disheartened, confused and doubtful about my chances of ever getting pregnant even with medical interventions. The convenient timing we tried so eagerly to plan around lost importance. The closer we got to moving back to the US, the timing of a pregnancy appeared to get desperately inconvenient. However, our mutual surrender to divine timing allowed us to trust the process and build an attitude of confidence that we could figure everything out when the time comes. In addition to these happy coincidences, a slip in timing of the next crop of aircraft means that things should be fairly slow at work until just after I start flying again.

I’ve learned that when hard work and expert advice seem to fail, trust, hope and acceptance build a channel for divine timing to work and for pieces to fall in place. Hopefully, I can carry that attitude through delivery and parenthood.

According to ancient vedic texts, pregnancy puts you in a state of pitta dominance. This explains physical changes such as increased body temperature and heart burn as well as increased emotional upsets. Pitta makes us desperate to to gain control and lends to frustration when we fail. Try this gentle, cooling flow feels counter productive but provides balancing relief for all that built up heat…especially in the middle of a pregnant summer.