One of the only things I regret about my engagement is that I didn’t have time to really enjoy the time of being engaged, being a bride, and planning the wedding. We were engaged for sixteen weeks. Planning a wedding in a new city while you are teaching full-time at a new job is a lot of work, especially in sixteen weeks. On top of that, my place of employment was less than healthy and David and I were both emotionally and spiritually numb from what had transpired when he left his previous church. So our engagement time was a happy and numb time. We had a beautiful wedding day and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves that day. But I have to admit that the planning of the wedding was, for me, just a list of things to get done before the wedding. I was hyper-focused on getting it all DONE. And I was too emotionally drained by the move, new job and other events to really relax and enjoy being a bride.

I made a promise to myself after that experience. I said that when and if I was ever pregnant, I was going to give myself time to enjoy the process. I was going to relish the time of having my first baby. I was going to enjoy the process of decorating the nursery, stitching a Christmas stocking, registering, buying supplies, etc. I was not going to make a to-do list and frantically go through it.

Now that I’m feeling better, I am starting to want to enjoy this time. I especially want to enjoy it because I know it is quite possible this may be the only baby I have. And I know that in order to enjoy this process in the way I want to, I need to make some changes. So I am going on an extended maternity leave from blogging. I’ve been thinking about this for the past several weeks and the bottom line is that I want to focus on my life at home and in the real world. Maybe it is the nesting instinct already kicking in. I don’t know.

I had a good phone conversation with a friend last week and she said many of the things I’ve been thinking about, especially since reading Making Room for Life (which I mentioned the other day). We talked about the lure of the internet and the time it takes away from real life. We talked about our need for real-life friendships that are meaningful.

Blogging takes time. It takes emotional and spiritual energy. It’s not just the writing a piece and posting it. It is responding to comments. It is answering emails. I love to get emails from readers. I truly, truly do. But they hang over me and I feel terrible for not answering them in a timely manner. And when I think of all the things I want and need to do over the next five months before Peanut is born, there are just so many things that come before blogging. And some of what I need to do is just have the time and energy for my real-life friends and family. And it is too easy to have online “stuff” steal that time and energy away from real life. My energy is already so limited with my pregnancy, that I am finding that I need to be more and more selective about how I invest my energy each day.

Something else that my friend said to me at that time has stuck with me. She said that she wondered if my pregnancy being so public would take away from the specialness of it for me personally and for David and me as a couple. We talked about how Mary “pondered all these things in her heart”. I haven’t really had time to ponder. Until one day last week, I hadn’t even written in my own journal since I’ve been pregnant. I need some time to ponder these things in my own heart. Maybe someday God will have me share them, but for now I think I need them to be between me and my God.

My current thought is that I will pop on from time to time and give an update on my pregnancy. I’ll be sure to leave a post that tells if it is a boy or girl when we have our ultrasound in May. I will probably do a non-pregnancy post once in a while. My domain name and hosting is paid for several more months so at this point I plan on leaving my site up. Maybe God will lead me to blog regularly again. Who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were back here regularly again some day and I wouldn’t be surprised if blogging was just for a season in my life and now it is time to go on to other things.

For now, I’m going to put the Carnival of Beauty on summer vacation. I’m not sure what to do with it at this point, so for now I’m just going to put it on a break.

It is time for me to do some pregnancy nesting and spend more time with family and friends. I’m looking forward to the good things God will do in my heart and life during this time.