Let’s see where we are now.

32 weeks. I’m waking up, on average, twice nightly to head through the darkness to the bathroom as my joints scream out in protest. I roll over to my side and push one of my three sleeping pillows out of the way, then climb back in bed and rearrange said pillows as my shoulders and wrists yell out, “Oh hell no!” and I, occasionally, get frustrated enough to (beware: shame spiral ahead) cross the threshold of noise-making that wakes up The Husband. The other night he whispered, “Are you okay?” and my reply, stripped down to honesty by tiredness and desperation, was, “Yes. I just wanted you to hear what I’m going through.” This morning, I told him that my hands feel like gigantic mittens that are numb to everything but pain. He endured this complaint as he has countless others, striding over and taking my hands in his own, kneading them toward temporary relief.

Then there are the adjustments to my ever-changing planner, my bowing out of Thursday morning volunteering because these days, bending over to pick up toys is an activity labeled “too strenuous.” There is the first Thanksgiving I had planned in our home of less than a year, the hosting I was prepared to accomplish that will have to happen another time. There is the unanswerable urge to scoop up The Niece. There is the canceling of getaways and absence of joint trips to the gym and walks around the neighborhood, activities that dominated our pre-pregnant life. There is the buildup and toleration of chaos beyond the amount with which I’m comfortable; the extension of time between housecleanings and the commensurate water spots on counters and fingerprints on steel–reminders that I am not meant to worship order and control but have a long way to go before I don’t.

So I look around, waiting for my eyes to be opened to the “but,” to the More. And here it comes now: there’s the loss that led to my hands being used not toward teeth, but toward writing; the hours of magic that led to the telling of a story whose fate is headed toward other hands, ostensibly, but in reality rests in the same ones it always has. Not theirs and not mine. There is the timing, perfect timing, of debilitation that comes only after that story has been finished. There is the early-morning and late-night sound of the dishwasher being unloaded by other hands that didn’t even have to be asked. There is the moment on the floor with The Niece when she approaches me, grinning, and rests her head on my shoulder. There is the watching of her as the Bro-in-Law holds his fingers out and she grabs onto them to be lifted from her changing pad–the same way TH holds his arms out to lift me from the couch each night. There are the little punches inside that come from hands that will hold mine. There is the trio of girls, including myself, who consider Sweet Valley Confidential and wine (sparkling cider for yours truly–it’s not Saturday yet) and American Horror Story guise enough to convene for an evening of discussion. There is TH in the next room, whose laughter at my overheard joke reminds me of all the other jokes of mine that he laughs at, of the joy embedded in our life together and of what we’re heading toward; a story drafted by hands that bear scars and build universes and hold unending grace and make us exactly what we’re meant to be.