Bittersweet

Tonight my chest is collapsing and expanding at the same time.

I am scheduled to be induced tomorrow morning.

He will no longer be the baby.

And she will join our family.

I think I'll be lucky if I manage to get any sleep tonight.

There's Nothing Quite Like...

...the look on someone's face when they look at your very pregnant belly and ask you "So when are you due?" and you respond with "Today."  The expression of surprise mixed with a slight trace of fear, as if they think you might suddenly double over in pain at the onset of a fierce contraction and they might end up having to be your labor support person, is really quite entertaining to see. 

In fact, perhaps the only thing more entertaining is when they ask you "So when are you due?" and you get to respond with "Yesterday."  Their eyes get wider, the traces of fear on their face get more pronounced, and they usually make some sort of nervous giggling sound or exclaim "OH!" loudly.

I can hardly wait for tomorrow's reactions!

Case In Point.

Remember in my last post where I mentioned how having a kid or being pregnant has resulted in more conversations with strangers in the past couple of years than in all the years before that? 

Case in point, the following two strange(r) moments happened on Sunday:

1)  Sunday mid-morning, just inside Lowe's, loading Gabe into one of their racecar carts.  An old man walks past, looks at me and my belly and says:  "You'd better not be heading too far from town young lady!"  (note:  because he was a cute old man in a straw hat, I chose to hear "You look like you're ready to have that baby anytime!" rather than "Wow you're HUGE!")

2) Sunday after an early dinner, we drove into town to get ice cream and go to the park.  Standing in Baskin Robbins, waiting to order, an older lady comes up to us and says "I was sitting in my car outside the window and I just had to come in and tell you - your little boy reminds me so much of my grandson who just turned 13 this weekend!"  (note:  because she was a cute older lady who was reminiscing about her grandson, I chose to hear "I just had to share my walk down memory lane with you!" rather than "I've been sitting in my car watching you guys for a while...")

I've Grown Accustomed to Her Feet...

...her little kicks and tiny nudges.
I've grown accustomed to the bathroom that
I frequent night and noon.
My smiles, my tears,
My hopes, my fears
Are second nature to me now;
Like breathing out and breathing in.
I used to sleep through the night without a toss or a turn;
Surely I can be that way again -
And yet
I've grown accustomed to her hiccups;
Accustomed to her wiggles;
Accustomed to her feet.
(with sincere apologies to Alan Lerner for modifying his song lyrics from the My Fair Lady song of the same title)


Over the course of this pregnancy, I've thought a lot about the fact that this is most likely the last time I will be pregnant.  It's sort of strange to think that when I was pregnant with Gabe, everything was new and "the first" experience, and now just a short time later everything is comparison and trying to remember if it's the same or different from being pregnant previously and it's "the last" experience.

There are a bunch of things I want to write down about how I feel lately so that I remember:

I was hit recently by the feeling that I'm not ready to have the baby.  Meaning - I'm not ready to not ever be pregnant again.  I'm not ready to not know what it's like to feel life moving inside me.  I'm not ready to stop having the very odd experience that is talking to random strangers about the personal details of my life.  I swear I've talked to more people in the past two and a half years since I got pregnant with Gabe than I had in the cumulative 34.5 years up to that point.  And the things you find yourself saying/hearing!  It's so odd!  A few months ago a Starbucks employee asked me how far along I was, and 10 minutes later we were still discussing kids and she was giving me her opinion on our name choice for our daughter (she informed me that she approved...whew.  no telling what kind turmoil it might've caused had she not). 

On Wednesday I thought I might be going into labor and I first felt this surprising sense of peace...like even though it was 2 weeks early and I still have a ton to do at work, it is what it is and I can't stop it if it's going to happen.  Then I immediately thought "but even so...not ready to have a baby today".  And then over the course of the rest of this week it's been this growing emotional feeling that I haven't appreciated this last time around nearly enough; that I'm not ready for pregnancy to be a memory.  And that I'm not ready for Gabe to not be my baby anymore.  I'm not ready to figure out how to split my attention between two kids.  Right now Gabe is so much the focus of our lives...his needs, his antics, the new things he's doing.  There's a part of me that's sad that our attention will be divided now.  And yet, I think that's healthy.  We wanted more than one child - we wanted siblings for them so that they would have each other growing up and once we were gone.  But still - this little girl being my baby means that Gabe isn't my baby anymore.  Lately when I look at him I see such a little boy - how does time go so fast? 

I wish we had the ability to revisit periods in our lives for a day or a two and that it wasn't just a linear path of experiences lived and then relegated to memory.  I would go back to when I moved to California by myself and felt simultaneously so aware of being alone and yet so independent and proud of myself for stepping into the unknown.  I would revel for a few hours in the fact that back then the only person I was responsible for was me.  I would appreciate it more because I would know that never again would I have that experience, including the loneliness of that experience.  I would appreciate the things I learned about myself during that time.  I would go back to the night when Bret and I were talking in the parking lot of the church after bible study and it took us 3 hours to talk ourselves around to the point of "declaring" our interest in dating each other.  I would re-live the stomach-dropping roller coaster of thoughts and feelings and remember how I so wanted to stay and find out if we were really both saying what it sounded like we were saying, and how at the same time there were a couple points in the beginning of the conversation where I just wanted to stop talking and go so we could keep things safe and friendly between us because I was sure there was no way he could be feeling how I was feeling.  I would appreciate it more because I would know that that particular feeling of exhilaration and anticipation would never be something that could be duplicated again.  I would appreciate it more because I would be able to relax and enjoy it and not be so nervous, knowing that I was really standing there talking to my future husband and the father of my children.  I would go back to the first positive pregnancy test I took and remember that feeling of "oh wow, so I guess this is really happening then, we're really starting our family".  I would appreciate it more because I would know that 9 months actually passes quite quickly, even though while you're in the midst of it it seems like it's lasting as long as an elephant's pregnancy (which is 22 months; I Google'd it so you don't have to...guess I'm just a considerate blogger like that).

Honestly, sometimes I really think I'm way too sentimental for this life.  I think it's quite likely that I'll spend my twilight years in a retirement home looking at pictures, boring people with my memories, and crying over how "nothing is the same as it used to be". 

Anyway.  The funny part is, Bret texted me from work on Wednesday morning (after I told him I thought I might be feeling something early labor-like) and it said "I'm ready to get our new baby girl".  Classic.  I am one big pile of emotions, feeling everything and anything, and Bret is practical as ever, ready to tackle our next adventure. 

So, since this will most likely be my last post until our daughter joins us sans womb (unless I somehow find some motivation to actually start posting all the drafts I've started but haven't finished), I will end this post with a few last pictures of us as a family of three.  These were taken last weekend at Echo Falls (where we got married) for our anniversary picture (yes we got married in June, yes we were late taking this year's picture...we were late taking last year's picture...are you sensing a trend here?).

And then...a few days later I convinced Bret to stop again on the way home from my birthday dinner and take a couple pictures of me and my soon-to-be-gone baby bump because we haven't taken as many belly shots this time around, and because I was wearing the same maternity shirt that I wore when we took anniversary pictures when I was pregnant with Gabe, so I thought that'd be fun to have pictures of both pregnancies in the same place in the same outfit.