As you know, there will be days I can’t write as I won’t be with internet access. So, on those days, I’ll be introducing you to friends via guest posts. I asked Chelsey from The Crouch Family blog to write a guest post for me because, although we’re near the same age, we’re in very different seasons of our lives. I’ve enjoyed reading her blog as she’s gone from dating to engaged to married and, now, a soon-to-be mother! I think you’ll enjoy reading about what’s going through her mind right now as she goes through her first trimester of pregnancy.

When Amy Beth asked me to write a post about what it feels like to be a “soon-to-be mother,” I was excited (and honored). But as I sat and tried to find the right angle from which to write, I was at a loss.

The thing is, at least for me, when I wasn’t married, the idea of having kids was mostly just me, my husband, and lots of little ones running around. The details were vague.

When my husband and I were engaged, we thought and prayed long and hard about how soon we would have kids. After talks with our pastor, we decided that for us, the best decision, and the one God was calling us to, was to trust Him with the starting of our family.

As it turned out, God chose for our family to start about eleven days after we got married.

It didn’t come as a huge surprise when we found out: we had prepared ourselves. We were (and are) living on a budget, we’re steadily paying off my husband’s student loans, and we knew we were ready to be parents.

But it’s so different than I expected.

First of all, when you hear about people being pregnant, and even when you read about other people being pregnant on blogs, it seems like one day you find out you’re pregnant and the next day you have your baby. Thus, the emotions go straight from excited! to excited!

But it’s not like that. I took a pregnancy test when I was five weeks and five days pregnant, at the beginning of June. The doctor estimated the due date to be February 5.

As I’m writing this, it’s July 2. Which means I have approximately six more months to think about being pregnant.

I hope I don’t come across as not excited, because I definitely am, especially when I see pictures of babies or things babies wear or really anything having to do with babies. But there are other emotions, too: fear, concern, sadness, grieving.

Fear because I don’t really know how to take care of a baby (for example: brea*tfeeding!?!?!!).

Concern because I’m not sure how we’re going to squeak by on my husband’s income.

Sadness because some people, well, don’t think being five weeks and five days pregnant when you’re seven weeks and two days married is quite as exciting as others.

And grieving because some of the things I thought I might do probably won’t ever happen.

This is me being honest, and this is sin showing the hold it has on my heart.

This is when I have to remember that God, before the foundation of the world, before there was time, said that He would cause physical circumstances to result in life within me. And I have to remember that “children are the Lord’s good gift” (Psalm 127:3). Right now, morning sickness and the mixed emotions I’m feeling don’t seem like a good gift, and from what the Lord said to Eve in the garden, I’m not sure they’re meant to be.

A lot can change in a year. For me, between my 23rd and 24th birthday, I’ll have gotten married and had a baby. But I know the Lord can work miracles in a moment, so at least for today, I’m trusting that He will surround me with women who do know how to take care of babies. That He will provide for us financially. That He will use me, my husband and my baby to show other people that children really are a good gift from the Lord. And that all the things that have been given up for the sake of this child will be returned to us a hundredfold.

And I think in ten, twenty, thirty years, I will look back on this season of my life and see only my life verse played out:

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” Psalm 34:8

You can follow the rest of Chelsey’s journey into motherhood here.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Eg*pt is great!  The weather is hot, the food is interesting and I even found a souvenier I can keep forever!

Love,

Your darling daughter

(P.S. – Henna.  One month, maybe two.  Take a deep breath.)

Edited to add: I keep getting questions about why I’m putting the * symbol in some of the words I’m writing; this is because I’m trying to keep those words from showing up in Google blog searches so I don’t attract unnecessary attention to my blog, where I’m at, etc. Also, everything I write (from the blog to emails) is monitored in the area of the country I’m in, so I have to be careful about what words I’m writing.

We went to the marketplace to do a little shopping, something we girls were very excited about doing. We had very strict instructions (even though security was going there with us) about how to act and such. You might be interested to know that we girls aren’t supposed to make eye contact with any males here other than those of our security agents or the guys in our group. This means that, when we’re in public, we almost always have dark sunglasses on and our heads towards the ground. It’s an interesting dynamic, especially when you’re used to looking wherever you want. We don’t always do a great job of it, but we try to follow the protocol, especially in a place as big as the market.

Things got off to an interesting start when I went with Hannah to try to find a bathroom and ended up having a man try to get us to come up to his apartment to use his bathroom. Um, hello, we didn’t get off the plane yesterday, sir.

Whenever we’re out in public like that, each of us walks around with a guy from our group, which we call our “trip buddy” (it changes all the time, we just each kind of pick a guy). In my buddy group at the market was John, who has actually been my buddy several times now and greets me with an excited “BUDDY!” about once a day.

John was very excited about the hat and jersey he bought, but I’m sure you can’t tell from the look of glee spreading across his face, right?

Joel was with us, too. At one point while he and I were waiting for the others to finish shopping in a stall, I thanked him for being such a good “buddy” for us.

His reply? “Well, if something goes down, I’m outta here and you girls can just fend for yourselves.”

Thanks, Joel. What a pal.

After leaving the market, we headed to an outdoor concert that basically featured men twirling around in long white outfits. My new mbff (male best friend forever) Nicholas was sitting beside me in his own white shirt.

Unfortunately his white shirt doesn’t twirl exactly like the ones on stage.

Speaking of our clothes, we girls finally had to do some laundry using the washer in our flat which happens to look like it was made in the 1940s. One of the girls got it started and then walked out of the bathroom where it was only to return two minutes later to a flood. I heard her yelling and, as I went running, I had the presence of mind to grab my camera and start recording for y’all.

My devotion to bringing you the latest breaking news from a flat in downtown Ca*ro cannot be stopped by slow upload speeds, lack of actual time on the internet nor flooded bathrooms.

Especially when said flood ends in an all out water fight.

Trent, talking to me early this morning: “Last night I had this nightmare that I was in Eg*pt and then I woke up and realized that I really was still in Eg*pt.  It was horrible.” 

His roommate: “Yeah, and all night he was saying ‘Okay, okay, I’ll buy it!  I’ll buy it!’ in his sleep.”

After a long day full of Egyptian food, the girls in my flat discovered that Pizza Hut delivers 24 hours a day all over Ca*ro, including our neighborhood.

In other words, a miracle arrived on our doorstep 30 minutes later.

That’s cheese pizza and yes, the cheese here is weird.  Everything else tasted the same — the bread and the sauce.  But the cheese… well, it was different.

Not that we were complaining.  Y’all we went crazy over that pizza.  In fact, there was actual dancing in the flat when we placed the order. 

And if that wasn’t enough, our host organization had put bottles of Pepsi and 7-Up in our fridge.  It was like Christmas morning or something.

We didn’t even use plates.  Who has time for plasticware when there’s actual pizza to be eaten?

That’s Katie, another of the girls in my flat.  She’s adorable.  Gosh, they all are, if you want to know the truth.

After dinner I was talking about how I didn’t know what to do with my hair because I wanted to wash it that night but knew it would look awful by the morning.  Darling Hannah told me I should do “t-shirt curls” and I was all “WHAT?  THERE IS A WAY OF CURLING YOUR HAIR THAT I DON’T ALREADY KNOW ABOUT?” 

It turns out that you can take pieces of an old t-shirt, wrap your hair around the pieces and then tie the ends of the pieces of t-shirt into knots.  You then sleep with it wrapped up like that and, in the morning, you wake up with perfect curls.

The problem was that we didn’t have an old t-shirt to cut up, nor did we have scissors.  So, I did the only thing I knew to do:

That’s right.  I took a knife to my favorite Starlite t-shirt and ripped it to shreds.  Sorry, favorite Starlite t-shirt, but nothing comes between me and perfect curls.

I took a quick shower (seeing as we don’t actually have hot water) and then Hannah began her magic.

 Before long, I was all tied up in knots.

 I slept on it all night and woke up to the tightest corkscrew curls I’ve ever seen (and they were completely dry, something that surprised me).  Hannah took the t-shirt pieces out of my hair, grabbed a few hairpins and created this:

It only took her three minutes to put all that hair up, which is pretty darn close to a miracle of itself but I don’t want to talk about miracles anymore because then it’ll make me start thinking about that pizza again and I just saw them set dinner on the table and I DO NOT RECOGNIZE A THING THEY PUT OUT.

Send more peanut butter.  Stat.

(P.S. – Today someone made this cane sugar drink thing-y for us and I was going to be brave and try it because I didn’t want to be rude.  Right as I went to take a sip, the girl behind me — who happens to be a mother of two — says “Wow, this tastes exactly like bre*stmilk.”  Delicious, no?)

I didn’t know Nicolas until he signed up for our trip, but I knew something about him was different from the day he showed up in my office to ask for a trip application.  We’re only at the beginning of the trip, but I’m not surprised that he’s become everyone’s favorite of the trip.  Everyone wants to eat breakfast at his table, sit in his section of the bus, etc. 

As I was watching some of the students interact with him today, I started trying to figure out why they love him so much, especially since most of them didn’t know him until five days ago.  As I watched him talk to them, I quickly realized why he’s so popular: Nicolas doesn’t ignore anyone.  Everyone matters to him — from how they’re doing to what they’re saying, he genuinely wants to know.  No one is excluded from being loved by Nicolas and, because of that, everyone wants to love him back.

Our first day here, Monday, was wild.  After breakfast followed by a crash course in Arab*c that left my head spinning, we headed to the pyramids for a few hours of exploration.  It was surreal to see something I began learning about in grade school — I mean, seriously?  We saw the pyramids.  Whoa.

I realize that’s not the best picture ever, but maybe you’ll appreciate it more when I tell you that it just took my computer 43 minutes to upload it for you.  No joke.

We also saw the Sphinx, something that blew me and Cate away.  We kept saying “We’re standing here.  Looking at the Sphinx.  In real life.”  I don’t know why that in particular hit us so hard, but it may have something to do with the fact we were a wee bit dehydrated.  

That Sphinx is pretty good looking for being an older guy, no?

Security here is a bit different than what I’m used to.  In our orientation packet from the organization here that is hosting us, they told us that the moment we girls stepped off our plane, we became even more beautiful than we were before.  It went on to explain that, to Eg*ptian men, we all look like American movie stars, regardless of our appearance (dress size, body shape, etc.).  We girls kind of disregarded that, but after spending a couple of days here, I’m starting to see they were right.  When we walk anywhere, the men just stare even though we are dressed very conservatively. 

So, that means that we have precautions that we would never think of in the United States.  For example, when we travel outside our building, we have at least one guard with us at all times.

You can’t see it in this picture, but he’s got a handgun underneath that jacket.  As Cate said when we first met him ”He ain’t messin’ around.”

Not only do we always have at least one armed guard with us when we go out, but several policemen actually escort us straight to our bus when we come out of our building.  They’re in white uniforms with the biggest rifles I’ve ever seen.  I’ll try to get a picture for you the next time we go out.  It’s a bit surreal (I think “surreal” is going to be the main word I use about this trip), but it makes us feel safer.   We girls also walk near at least one guy from our group and we also make sure we keep our heads down and don’t make eye contact with any men other than our guards.  We don’t cover our heads at all times, but when we do cover our hair and faces, it helps to hide the fact that we’re Americans, especially if we don’t speak when we’re out. 

We went to visit some mosques yesterday afternoon since one of the topics we’re studying while we’re here is religion (the students are also taking classes on nutrition and ethics; the latter being what I’m teaching).  The architecture on these buildings is stunning.

We weren’t alone while we were there of course.  Big area = two guards.

Money is different here, too — the American dollar goes a long way here.  For example, in residential areas I could buy an extremely large (80 ounces?) bottle of water here for about $.40 / U.S. (I would pay about $1.00 / U.S. in tourist areas here, so it’s still a really good exchange). 

Take the infamous camel ride I’m about to show you.  I stayed on for about five minutes (you’ll only see 40 seconds of it in the video below) and paid a grand total of $1.80 / U.S.  Crazy, right?

I’d say it was a well-spent $1.80, but I’ll let you be the judge. 

Meet Hannah, one of the six girls staying in my flat here in Eg*pt.  I took this at one of the two mosques we visited today.  One of my goals for the trip is to photograph the girls (and some of the guys, too) as much as possible so that they can have some good photos of themselves from the trip.  When I saw the light streaming in from one of the windows at the second mosque, I decided that was a good place to begin.  Doesn’t she look so pretty in her long skirt and gorgeous hair?

It’s going to take a bit to get the camel video up, but I’ll keep working on it.  In the meantime, thought I’d say a quick hello while everyone’s finishing up lunch.  Trent, one of the students on our trip, just came up to the room I’m in:

Trent: “Hey, lunch is served if you want some.”

Me: “What is it?”

Trent: (Long pause.)  “Egypt*an food.”  (Long pause.)  “I think.”

I went downstairs to investigate but then decided that I’m skipping today’s lunch mainly because I can’t actually recognize most of it’s contents.  I just had a tasty package of peanut butter crackers though, so basically, it’s just like being at home.

We tried to stay up late last night to get ourselves on their schedule so, after dinner, a few of us went to the roof of the building to hang out.   Joel, another of the students on the trip, played some guitar for us. 

He’s pretty darn good.  As a matter of fact, he’s sitting across from me playing as I type this.  Weird, right?  Josh, another student, is playing his guitar, too.  Josh was my “buddy partner” while we were out yesterday.  When we’re out in public, we girls have a guy with us pretty much at all times.  I’ll have to write a whole post about this later. 

But back to last night.  Allison and Nicolas, more students, were on the roof last night, too. 

Allison is one of the girls in my flat and she is hilarious.  Actually, all the girls in my flat are — everyone piled onto the beds in mine and Cate’s room last night and talked until bedtime.  I fell asleep first and slept right through the rest of their conversation.  It felt SO good to get a full night’s sleep.  I’m like a different woman today.

Nicolas, the other person in the picture above, is pretty funny himself.  Doesn’t he look totally Egypt*an with his white shirt and linen pants?  I’ll tell you more about him later; you’ll love him.  I think he’s already a crowd favorite here on the trip. 

Well, we’re off to visit a few mosques this afternoon, so I’ve got to run.  Keep emailing me and leaving comments, pretty please.  Helps me feel less homesick.

Oh, and do you like my scarf?  I’m going to keep covering my head even when I return to the states.  Excellent way to skip trying to fix your hair.

I’m here!  I’ve been here a little less than 24 hours, I think.  Wait, just asked Cate.  She says we’ve been here 18 hours.  It feels like a lot longer than that.

In the last 18 hours, there have been several highlights:

1. Not leaving the Ca*ro airport until 3:30 a.m. here.  Have you ever seen 23 people without sleep trynig to navigate their way through swine flu screening, passport control and security?  It’s quite the adventure.

2. We’re staying in flats; the one I’m in charge of has six girls total in it including myself and Cate.  She and I are sharing a room, of course.  It’s just like being back in a dorm, except for the fact that WE’RE NOT IN AMERICA.

3. We couldn’t fall asleep last night, so Cate and I laid in bed talking for awhile, mainly about the fact that we wanted to catch the first flight back to America.  We were laying there eating granola bars and peanut butter crackers when the sun began to rise.  When we realized that we would be going yet another day without sleep, we almost lost it. 

4. Instead we began talking about how there could be rats where we’re staying since trash is just thrown in the street here.  We talked about it for about 30 seconds before we both fell silent, fully terrified at the thought of a rat being in our flat.  Without us even having to say anything to coordinate it, Cate scooted over in her twin bed and I jumped in it.  It was a little tight, but at least the granola bars and crackers weren’t taking up too much room.

5. When I finally got brave enough to leap back into my own bed, I accidentally hit the lamp and fell into the floor. 

That seems like a good place to wrap up today’s post, no?

P.S. – I rode a camel today.  AND I MADE A VIDEO OF IT FOR YOU.  (Tomorrow?  Got to figure out how to get it to upload.  You will not be disappointed and that’s a guarantee.)