My “On Time” baby can be here in as little as 7 weeks. I thought by this point of pregnancy I’d be feeling super pregnant and baby would feel inevitable. But, with the exception of a few kicking/punching parties at regular intervals throughout the day (that I can barely feel), and the reality of the heaviness I feel when I move due to weighing 202lbs when I started out at 168, I don’t feel pregnant at all. I don’t feel not pregnant but I’m not yet at the point where I truly believe my enlarged stomach is caused by anything more than a few nights binging on, say, robotic Oreos that wiggle every so often while being digested.
But, surreal or real, baby is coming very, very soon. Life will change forever. It’s crazy to think that after 34 years of independence my biological clock has me yearning to throw that all away in order to nurture a human life. I’m excited and terrified. I have no idea what it will be like. My maternal instincts, other than being a good listener, are nil. When people hand me their babies, especially very little ones, I typically give them the death stare and they take baby back. I’m afraid of how fragile they are, how little, how much of a person they are (in needing certain things to stay alive) while not at all able to ensure their own survival they are.
This weekend, we’re up at our annual anniversary destination — a beautiful national park by the coast that we adore. We’ve been coming here every year for many, many years. We won’t be doing any strenuous hikes this trip (not that we ever do, really) but it’s important to take one last trip before our new life begins, even if that means huffing and puffing up a sand dune to see the ocean.
But time is ticking on very quickly. Seven-to-ten weeks is so little time. I have one cross-country flight to tackle before this time (next week) which I have slight concerns about (largely avoiding blood clots and going into labor on the plane — I can deal with the discomfort.) The good news is I’m able to actually have some productive work meetings in NY while I’m there (staying a week as my cousin has her wedding next weekend and my mom is throwing me a baby shower the following!) Once I’m back from that, it’s the home stretch. It’s too late to be getting real time because it’s already gotten real. It’s prepare thyself for massive amounts of pain then being a human milk factory to an adorable little poop machine for the foreseeable future.
My greatest fears definitely lie around childbirth. I know so many women successfully birth a child and live to tell about it, but it doesn’t help knowing that is the most painful experience one can have in life that is not accidental or designed to kill you. It feels like that time my sister got me on Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure (the tallest roller coaster in the world that happens to have a magnetic super-fast start, shooting you out until eventually you gain enough speed to go basically straight up into the sky then down again) even though I’m terrified of heights, and the moments when you’re strapped it and they don’t tell you when you’re going to take off.
So I’m excited, in that way, of not knowing what it’s going to be like. At 34, there aren’t many major experiences in life that are so novel. Life is meant to be filled with constant discovery and growth by pushing you out of your comfort zone. But, at the same time, my mind is asking itself over and over again, why did you agree to go on this coaster in the first place?
At this point, there’s no turning back. I sit here strapped in with all the other pregnant ladies due in the next few months and wait for our cars to take off, 0 to a billion miles per hour throwing our bodies into horrific pain that will all be concluded with the dopamine-inducing thrill of getting off the ride and having a baby (and, clearly, lots of women then want to do it again as many people have more than one kid.) So, I’m trying to just embrace that thought of being on a roller coaster when the time comes and my stomach and sides and back and legs and body begin to cramp up — when my insides twist and turn to push out a human being that I’ve been growing for the last nine months, give or take.
And then I’ll meet you, sweet, innocent baby. I’ll meet you who will immediately make my husband and I — a pairing of committed adults in some form of quite enjoyable extended adolescence — a family. Parents. And a kid. You’ll come out looking up at the world with wide eyes confused and scared (much like how I act & feel on a daily basis, so we’ll at least have that in common.) You’ll likely know how to get milk from my breast based on instinct, and you’ll be ready to gain a personality in six months or less, one that will have little to do with how we raise you and more to do with how the universe has designed you to be.
Even though I’m absolutely terrified (and constantly questioning whether I should have gotten on this roller coaster), I love you so much my baby, and I can’t wait to meet you.
life with interest 