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September 30, 2002 - Ready. Or Not.
Mind you, it's just a feeling. And you can all laugh at me when Thanksgiving rolls around and I'm still waiting, big as a butterball turkey. But I can't shake the idea that before we shape the faces of this year's jack o'lanterns, we're going to see the face of our daughter. It's come on sudden and strong, this need to be ready. And it's kept me very, very busy. Mostly I think this: she's going to be cold. It will be November, and she's going to be cold. So I buy: small knit caps, fuzzy little socks, fussy little sweaters. It's amazing and dismaying how quickly it all adds up. But we are preparing for a whole new person. Imagine if you dropped nayked out of the sky in late fall how many things you would need. What she mostly will need is to feel safe, and to feel warm and clean and full, and to feel loved. Wallets are useless in such matters. Only we can give her these things, and so we had better be ready. Ê I'm sort of done with being pregnant. Not that I'm in any big hurry for her to get here, or that I'm particularly worn-out or uncomfortable. (I continue to feel better than I ever have in my life, about 95% of the time. When the bad moments crop up, I take a nap, grab a snack, or get a grip, according to the situation.) What I mean is I'm looking past this time and thinking more and more about the impending reality of another human being. Being pregnant has been great, but, aside from having to keep my nose out of this year's crop of unpasteurized apple cider, my life hasn't really been all that different for the past eight months. I'm still me. Toby and I are still two together. And all this is about to change. Ê I'm sort of done with the whole childbirth thing, too. We signed up for classes through the hospital, but the night they offered us conflicted with Toby's teaching, so that was the end of that. The only other option was to take the entire six-week course in one day. Fine with me. That'll be coming up next weekend, so la petite has standing orders to stay put until then. But these days I'm not really focused on the birth itself. I know it will be an intense experience, a life-altering experience. I know that the better I know what to expect, the better it will go with me, so I read and mull and talk to my doctors and to people who've been through it before. But a fundamental part of me believes that no amount of reading or talk can really prepare me for what will happen to my body on that day. And I can't help thinking, after all, it is only one day. This child I will have for the rest of our lives, and that's what I need to be ready for. She waits inverted inside me, feet bumping up against my ribcage, almost ready to meet the world. |
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