Today I am 34 weeks and 4 days pregnant - less than three weeks until Basil is full term! Hopefully our little bambino will stick around in utero for the full 40, but it's comforting knowing that we're getting to a point where he'd most likely do okay outside of the womb.

K and I spent Christmas with my family and decided to come back home on December 30 so that we would have time to get things set up in the nursery. We spent New Year's Eve priming and painting, and New Year's Day assembling the crib and changer. Unfortunately, we also spent both days sick, as we seemed to have picked up a cold somewhere along the way. It's actually not been a terrible way to spend these last days of break though - it's nice to be forced to slow down, to prioritize what really needs to get done, and to just relax rather than running around trying to accomplish a million tasks.

We went to Mass at the Cathedral for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. During the homily, Father spoke about the need for peace to begin within each heart. Life is not a series of tasks to accomplish, but a journey towards God.

Being a lover of to-do-lists and having been something of an over-achiever for most of my life, letting go of the compulsion to view life as a series of tasks to be accomplished is not always easy. At this point, when I am less enamored by academic and professional pursuits, this mindset gets transferred to the other areas of my life - namely, raising a family. Where I once might have said I want to publish 10 papers in top-tier journals while in medical school and then go to the number one residency in my field, I now say I want to have six babies before I'm done with my training and sew them adorable matching outfits and live the liturgical year in our home church and somehow still work as a doctor...

I don't have a good way to tie all this together (pregnancy brain?), but it's really just about realizing that rather than making endless to-do-lists or judging the value of my life by arbitrary accomplishments, the better way is to submit to God's grace, trusting that He will work all things out in His time. I didn't really know what I was doing when I came to medical school, and seven months later I met the man who would become my husband. We didn't really know what we were doing when we got married, or when we decided we wanted to have a baby - but now, on the precipice of welcoming a new person into our family, I can't imagine any other way of living. God has given us a joyful vocation in marriage - to be each others' path to heaven, to co-create with God new life that will bring joy and glory to Him, and to hopefully set those little lives on the way that leads to eternity.

The second reading from the Feast of the Holy Family says it better than I can:

Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another,
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
with gratitude in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.