Skipping Over and Counting Blessings

Sometimes with the speed at which life travels, we skip over blessings that happen to us every day. And because they happen every day we forget to be thankful for them :

• making breakfast with my daughter as she carefully watches my every move
• putting on makeup and watching Rafa mimic me by brushing her face with my brushes or looking at herself in the mirror
• security guards that know us and watch out for us because we are their gente - their people
• a warm cup of a delicious Caramel Cappuccino
• lunch with Husband (how many people get to have lunch everyday with their spouse)
• dogs that bark and jump with nothing but excitement when you get home... every single time.

What everyday blessings could you be more thankful for?

Sometimes we are so busy looking forward to the big things that are going to happen in life that we miss the small things that are happening right now:

• sitting on the sideline with my daughter, watching her wave to Papi while he plays football with his friends
• chance meetings with someone you haven't seen in a while
• skyping with friends halfway around the world or an ocean between
• a glass of wine
• watching TV on your rooftop, in the open air, warm breeze hitting your face
• food shopping and not having to think about if we could afford to eat this week 

What small things are you missing?

And sometimes because we forget to honor all of the moments that we experience, we even bounce over the big blessings...

I'm pregnant. That's no surprise, right?

32 weeks in. My second one.

Either Husband or I must be as fertile as the crescent because for both pregnancies

- PREGNANT!

Our first time around, we weren't at all trying. At what literally must have been the moment of conception, then boyfriend now Husband suggested that I might want to cut out the booze for the next month... "just in case." I thought Is this guy crazy? There was no way I could be pregnant...

A little more planning went into the second one. We knew we wanted to have another child sooner rather than later and so we figured with Rafa at 9 months old, we could start trying. After all, it might take a little while...

If by little while, you mean ONCE, then yes... it took a little while.

But it wasn't just getting pregnant that was easy. Being pregnant was and has been easy too. The typical pregnant symptoms: some nausea - no morning sickness or toilet hovering, some heartburn - fixable with TUMS, less sleep - solved with some naps and resting, anemia, that I can't totally blame on pregnancy since I've had it before - made better with iron vitamins, and back pain - helped by Husband back rubs.

 But this isn't about how easy it was for me to get pregnant or be pregnant 

...sometimes we bounce over even the big blessings, remember?

I am grateful to be carrying such a miracle inside me but do I take it for granted?
Do I count that blessing everyday?

If I'm honest, I'd say no. I don't.

In the last few days, on three different occasions, I have been reminded that not everyone's path to this miracle is easy or even possible.

So many couples try... and try.

So many couples try different routes and treatments and procedures.

So many couples try and live through months or years of disappointment and sorrow.

And so many couples at the end of trying, and treatments, and disappointment... just can't. 

It's unfair. 

It's not biased.

It happens to the healthiest, the youngest, the wealthiest. It happens to the brunettes, the hard-working, the non-working, the most fit, the organic eating. 

Motherhood, as wondrous and magical as it can be, isn't always beautiful and doesn't always feel good. Even I, with my two easy pregnancies, know this. Because even through my easy pregnancies I have had my own struggles. With my bouts of overwhelming hidden fear and crying in my doctor's office about all of the things that could go wrong, to my images of smothering someone to death with my engorged, mastitis boobs if I heard one more person say that breastfeeding would come naturally and to give it time, to the times that I want to be selfish, selfish, selfish again - I know that motherhood isn't always dancing barefoot in the sunlight with your kid "easy."

It can be hard and ugly and unfair and certainly not easy. But I can still be grateful because many people would switch shoes if they could. And that is what sometimes, I bounce over. That not everyone is the lucky that you are today. All we could do, like in all other aspects, is to count the blessings. 

Big, small... 

All.

What are you blessed with today?