The Waiting

1.  Today may be the last prenatal check up we have for the baby.
2.  Blogger wasn't working for me yesterday for some reason, so I got a lot of my novel finished.
3.  Only four more days until the due date (which I know doesn't mean the baby is coming in four days, but it still makes it feel close).

I feel like we're just about as ready as we can be.  We have bottles, binkis, booties, and blankets, and all the other stuff that I never knew we needed.  We have the oh-crap-it's-time bag, and a route all picked out.  Two routes if the free way looks backed up.  We have the phone number for the hospital and the midwife, and we know that it's 3 to 5 minutes between pains she can't talk through for an hour, then we take her in.  Our parents are ready, our siblings are excited, and we are... well, we're a cacophony of emotions.  We're really happy, and excited, and grateful, and nervous.  We've read "What to Expect," but still aren't sure what to expect, and it sounds like no one can really tell us exactly what to expect.  "Every baby/labor/person/car seat is different," they tell us.  So, it seems there's really no way to know what to expect, and so we wait.

The waiting hasn't been bad so far.  I've really been trying to psych myself up for a week after the due date, and then be surprised and happy if it comes early, but I don't know how well that's working.  Again, I really can't know until the time comes.  A couple of women in our neighborhood had the exact same due date, one of them gave birth twelve days early, while the other gave birth a few days late.  It's as thought the due date doesn't even really help us, except for the preparation part.

And to be honest, it's the preparation part that will probably kill me in the end.  We have the room all picked out.  Proudly displayed are our children's books that we want to read to Baby J.  In the crib is a giraffe that plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  In the Pack-n-Play is a stuffed Goofy in a onesie.  It all makes me just a little more anxious to have the baby here.  I've done it to myself though, ya know?  When you're preparing for Disneyland you put everything Disney out of your mind until the day of, so you don't torture yourself with what you dream it will be like.  I might as well have been wearing Mickey ears for the past couple of months.  Every daydream is that of a son or a daughter.  Every car ride is looking back at the car seat we already have installed, with a cooing infant going up the canyon, or to grandma's, or to Wal-Mart for the very first time.  It's sleeping in, and knowing that I won't be able to shortly because we'll have an alarm that needs to be fed every two hours, and I think changed about that often.  It's the budgeting, and the saving, and the long talks about if we think we're ready for person number three.  And then, it was deciding that we were.  And now, it's the waiting.

But, I might as well be happy about it.  Every day the baby doesn't come my excitement builds a little more.  Soon, I have the feeling that every hour will build the excitement as well.  I love him/her already guys. I love him/her and I don't even know what gender he/she is.

Have a nice day.