We're having a baby any day now. In fact, I'm writing this having started maternity leave yesterday. I'm currently in my pajamas drinking a latte while watching it quietly rain through our back porch window. A pumpkin spice candle is burning and a golden retriever is sleeping at my feet. So far maternity leave is awesome.

I have learned so much through the process of becoming pregnant and preparing to have a baby. I suppose this whole learning thing is going to be a predominant theme in the coming months. Learning and not sleeping. I found out I was pregnant the early morning of March 4, 2014. Dustin was out of town on business, but neither of us could wait until he got home to test, so I did it on my own. I called him immediately after, of course, which I think ended up being something like 4 AM his time. Good morning, you're going to be a father...now try and be productive at work today.

That morning will forever be a memory that is sealed in my brain. I remember exactly how I felt and how I reacted and how I did nothing else the entire day except for walk around in a haze pretending to work. We had been trying to get pregnant for over a year. It had been very long year of wrestling with God, feeling intermittently sad, vulnerable, hopeful, angry, peaceful and resentful. In the process I met God on my knees in what is now Ella's room. I also had countless conversations with other women who were or still are wrestling with trying to be mothers. Some of the bravest, most beautiful women I know. I met God in those conversations, too. And I entered into pregnancy with more maturity and gratitude than I would have if I'd had things my way. God's timing is funny and wildly perfect like that.

My hope is that I will always be open to sharing our story of the year before Ella. Other women's stories kept me going, encouraged me, and have made me feel brave enough to be vulnerable. Also, Audrey Assad's music on repeat and Psalm 139. Now we're ready to meet our girl. Our girl whose face, form, and first day are known only by the God who created her and stitched her together inside of me. There is no anticipation like the anticipation of knowing you, sweet Ella James, come soon.

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139, NIV