Happy

I feel like I have fallen off the face of the planet and woken up to find myself back in the middle of busy civilization.
Our computer had an unnexpected coronary and died without warning about a week before we left North Africa leaving me feeling completely disconncted from so many of you. So now, after two guiltily delightful weeks away from email, Facebook, news and blogs, I am sitting overwhelmed again by digital information in a tiny internet cafe in Nairobi. It is always a little odd to be reminded of how endlessly the riotous worlds of coffee shops and supermarkets go on whether or not I am in them. Overnight the sound of hornbills and little boys playing soccer outside my bamboo fence have been replaced with traffic horns and the click of high heels of pavement. The parched 100+ degrees has been soaked up by a perfect 75 degrees of cool greeness and the miles of dramatically vast grassland dotted only by mud huts and distant mountains has been swallowed up by skyscrapers and neon lights.
 It's not a bad change. I slurped the dregs of my milkshake from lunch shamelessly and blissfully curled up under chilly blankets last night. At eight and a half months pregnant running water and an endless supply of green vegetables makes me very, very happy. It just always feels a little odd at first. 
So we are settling in to life in the big city for a while. This morning the doctor told us that Annabelle is lying exactly like she should be as she gets ready to make her grand debut in a few weeks. We couldn't have asked for a smoother pregnancy and are so very thankful.
At the hospital this morning I saw two new mothers in long robes pushing babies only hours old in wheeled baissonettes down the hallway. The babies were pink and wrinkled and squinty eyed. The mothers were exhausted and proud and happy. And as we passed I said congratulations and then started to cry. Because really, what else can you do when you are terrified, elated, overwhelmed, impatient and excited beyond your ability to express it. You cry a little (at least I do) and then you laugh and thank God from the bottom of your heart and ask for a little help.
I am so happy.