{pregnancy}

By the end of this year, I will have been pregnant for 17 months, almost straight, with a 2 month break in the middle of it. I honestly don't remember what it's like to not be pregnant, or to fit in my pre-pregnancy pants and skirts. And Travis has dealt with all that comes with having a pregnant wife without a complaint. It's just become the new normal. I can never complain though about a single symptom, of any discomfort, or of the baby kicking constantly. I would rather be up all night feeling kicking and getting no sleep than to have the kicking stop altogether---because I know what that feels like too.

I've decided that from now on my pregnancies aren't physical. While I do have symptoms that aren't exactly fun {like all pregnant woman do}, I feel for the most part pretty good physically. My pregnancies are all mental now.

I'm finding that there is such a fine line between faith and fear, and if I'm not careful, it can flip back and forth in a second. In the end, I really have zero control of the outcome of this pregnancy {minus the fact that my full-time job in a couple weeks will be counting kicks}, so there really is no sense in worrying!

It's interesting to go through all of the same milestones and to set up the same baby things, to plan another blessing, to go through all of the same steps again. It's quite the educational course in faith. At first I didn't want to prepare anything and just wait for the baby to be in our home to start all that. But, faith is action, so we need to show faith by doing what we can to prepare for the outcome we are praying for. And so, the diaper bag is packed for the first time, the high-tech baby monitor is being ordered, and the crib is being shipped this very moment.

Elder Holland's talk, "Lord, I Believe" is one of my new favorites because it talks about just that---faith.

The account in Mark of the father bringing his sick son to Christ, gives a plea that Travis and I are constantly echoing: "If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us."

And then Elder Holland continues, as if speaking directly to us, "I would say to all who wish for more faith, remember this man! In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold to the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited. In the growth we all have to experience in mortality, the spiritual equivalent of this boy's affliction or this parent's desperation is going to come to all of us. When those moments come and issues surface, the resolution of which is not immediately forthcoming, hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes. It was of this very incident, this specific miracle, that Jesus said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard see, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto you." The size of your faith or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue---it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you do have and the truth you already know."

And so, here goes to a few more faith-filled months, of holding true to the ground we've already won---in knowing that God has not ceased to be a God of miracles.