The Thanks in Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. I love everything about it. I love getting up early and cooking the Turkey. I love cramming my oven full of food upon food. I love putting up my Christmas tree. I love the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. I love setting the table. And I love having the opportunity to tell my loved ones how truly Thankful I am to have them in my life. Because I really am a very, very lucky girl.
Over the past few months since I've been obviously pregnant I have felt increasingly uncomfortable at work. Since I work at a community college, with a remedial population, many of our students come from such lives of chaos. There are 'baby daddies' but no husbands (sometimes several different baby daddies), there are several families living together, there are no health plans, savings accounts, mortgages, college degrees. There is chaos. Fighting. Fear. I feel guilty sometimes when they want to talk about my baby because I have such a foreign life to them. I've had the same full time job since I was 24. I've owned my home since I was 25. I have finished my graduate coursework (we are not going to say the word thesis). I waited until I was 30 to get married and 31 to get pregnant. I am really very, very lucky. I know that a lot of that is attributable to good decisions I have made in my life, but I can't help feel the gap between how much easier my life is than theirs are. It has really made me very thankful.
The miscarriage jolted me out of that. And yet, four months after the miscarriage I got Liam. And he stuck. and I am so very, very Thankful for that. Thankful for every day that passes.
And I am thankful for my sistas. This post miscarriage pregnancy has been the scariest thing I've ever done. Some days I thought it was really going to push me over the edge. I didn't know how Joy could ever come-how I would ever be able to corral my fear enough to be a good host to my growing child. Sometimes I felt my emotions were spinning out of control and that I was the only one who could possibly feel this way and then you were there to say that you understood. More than that, though, you let me in to your lives to share your own stories. That pulled me out of mine and into a bigger world--a world where sorrow and joy and fear and all of the stuff that is real in the world co-exists. I have come to care so greatly about what happens in your lives. I have prayed for blood draws and scans and cycles and triggers and angel babies and job interviews and surgeries, etc. I have felt connected in a way I haven't felt before--connected by such a common cause, brought together by pain and by joy. I love you all for the difference you have made in my life. I hope that each of you has felt the same from our little circle; our group of friends with a reality unlike the reality others experience. I hope that all of you have found a home here. And I hope that this year brings you Joy. You all deserve it.

I am 30 weeks today. the day before Thanksgiving. For some reason 30 weeks has always stood out in my head as a major milestone. I don't know if its the ticker or the Thanksgiving that has brought this swell to my heart, but I know that tomorrow will be a very special day, indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving!