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When our pregnancy was revealed mid-December I wondered if the timing would allow me to engage in Advent to a deeper degree. Sure, we had our pregnancy revealed by six blue lines (2 positive lines x 3 tests = 6) instead of Gabriel, but something was clearly binding me to the emotion of Advent in a new way. While this may have happened to a small degree, I underestimated the way in which my pregnancy would bind my heart to my students and neighbors.

The spring was filled with moments in my classroom that I will always cherish (“Your baby is going to turn out so cute and I know you’re not going to have a miscarriage because you are healthy and clean”) and others that were truly humbling (“Ms Horst, today you don’t look pregnant at all! You just look fat!”). A month after the big announcement was made, this interaction occurred:

Me: You guys are going to have to make more room for this pregnant woman to sit down.

Feliciano: I didn’t know you were pregnant!

Me: Feliciano, you know I’m pregnant… we’ve been talking about it for the last month.

Feliciano: Well, I knew you were going to have a baby, but I thought you were going to be pregnant this summer.

I knew I was beginning to think like a teacher when I was able to appreciate the logical explanation of inferring on Juan’s assessment despite its brutal honesty:

“Inferring is like predicting what is going to happen. You use your prior knowledge and your beliefs. For example, I believe my teacher is having a baby. My evidence is that her tummy is getting fat.”

At Joshua Station, we’ve had a few gut wrenching conversations  similar to this one with Fanta:

Fanta: Is your boyfriend going to marry you now?

Me: Chris? We’re already married.

Fanta: But now that you’re pregnant… is he going to marry you?

Me: He already married me before we were pregnant.

Feliciano: Do you have a ring?

Chris and I didn’t fit Fanta’s five-year-old understanding of marriage, so the fact checking continued: Did he get down on a knee? Did he say “Will you marry me?” Are you still wearing the ring? Do you live together?

Now, less than two weeks away from 8.9.10, I’m beginning to infer like Juan… Using my prior knowledge (everyone I know has always stopped being pregnant at some point, usually around that 40th week) and my beliefs (that jab to my ribs felt like a baby is inside of me), I am going to infer that our life is about to get pretty dang sweet.