Nesting: (verb) To create and settle into a warm and secure refuge.

Today, I'm 28 weeks pregnant with my fifth child.  It's quite . . . uncomfortable is the first word that comes to mind!  I am worn out.  Moving takes my breath away.  Everything from my chest down aches.  Every time I sneeze, cough, or laugh, I pee simultaneously (it just so happens that I have allergies and a great sense of humor).  I'm extremely tired and never seem to get enough rest.  I'm irritable and my patience is anorexic (it was already too thin).  Truthfully, there is only one thing that makes being pregnant enjoyable, and that's feeling the baby move.

It hasn't gotten to the point where the baby is pushing up against my lungs cutting off my oxygen, or jabbing a foot or elbow into my ribs yet.  The baby is not too big yet, just snug as a little bug in a rug.  When he changes position or stretches a little, I feel it and I have to admit, I love that feeling.  It's the same feeling that I was afraid I'd never feel again with my last pregnancy because I thought I'd be finished after four.  I got so sad when I thought I'd never feel that again.  And now that this is definitely the last baby, I savor each little movement.  There's not much fun involved in being pregnant, but there is so much joy in being a vessel for your unborn child.  It's amazing how the slightest movement can drown out the discomfort and make you feel nothing but love.

So my husband was trimming the shrubbery in front of our house and stumbled across this robin's nest.

 

When the kids brought it in the house to show me, I was in awe.  It was so beautifully and carefully constructed.  I'd never seen one so perfect.  It was the perfect size, shape, sturdy, and homey.  I admired the architect like you would that supermom that you occasionally get a glimpse of and compare yourself to.  My motherly instincts clicked into overdrive.  Making sure no one touched the eggs, I was angst ridden over what to do.  I could only imagine how the mother robin would feel coming back to what was a perfectly secure hiding space for her family when she left, to find out that there had been a security breach.  I couldn't move them too far, she may not find them.  And what if something else found them before she did?  I did the best that I could to tuck the nest with the four babies into the same tree, but my gut knew that my choice could never match the choice this mother had already made.  I instantly wished we had just left the jungle bushes growing erratically wild for this family's sake.

I did not sleep that night at all.  I kept agonizing over those four eggs as if they were my four children, who slept soundly in their beds.  My mind was thinking all sorts of things about my fears of my own nest not being big enough, clean enough, sturdy enough, homey enough, safe enough.  When the sun approached and the birds started chirping outside my window, I was still awake, wondering if the sounds of the constant tweets were the mother and father arguing over the fate of their children.  When my kids got home from school they came to me immediately to sadly report that three of the eggs were now broken revealing tiny bird fetuses and one egg was missing.

I was so sad.  I don't know what happened.  I don't know if the mother rejected them because they had been moved, or if some unknown predator had helped itself.  Regardless, in a matter of hours her family was torn apart.

Now I'm left feeling overwhelmed, unprepared, and too drained to do anything about it.  I hope the "nesting instinct"  that's supposed to arrive by the last trimester triumphs against these odds.  I've got five eggs to worry about now.  I have to keep reminding myself that if God provides for the birds, He certainly will provide for me and my growing family.  Now, if I could just get up the energy to rustle up some twigs...