When we last communicated, I was sharing about how I was suddenly bitten by the baby bug.  Now, a month or so later I am overjoyed, shocked, and elated to share that I am, in fact, pregnant.  Can it be?  Just writing the words feels so strange and unreal. 

 

At what point will it feel real?  When will I really feel like a bona fide mom-to-be?  Will it be when the first visible sign of a bump starts to appear?  Or will it be the first time I feel my wee one kick, a possible sign that a mini-Beckham is growing inside of me?  (Secretly, I am hoping for a Tiger, Kobe, or A Rod because I much prefer watching golf, basketball, or baseball to soccer….but of course, that’s not up to me…)  I really want to know when it will sink in because right now all I feel is tired, hungry, and oh, did I mention exhausted? 

 

I am cutting myself some slack, because after all, by some miracle called life, I am making another human.  I joke with my husband sometimes when he gets home from work, “How was your day, honey?”  I tease.  “What did you do today?”

 

He answers with some pat answer, and I respond, “Oh, really, because I made some toes.” 

 

All joking aside, it really is amazing that all this is going on inside me and I have little to do with it.  Other than eating right (isn’t ice cream a grand source of calcium), exercising (online shopping can burn up to 100 calories an hour – more if you use Ebay), and trying to get as much rest as possible, I am taking a back-seat to what Mother Nature has been doing for centuries.  It’s like being on pro-creation autopilot.  I know there are a lot of maneuvers happening beneath the hood, and though I am in the driver’s seat, I may as well be asleep at the wheel because my body is just doing its thang.  You go, Mother Nature.  Let me know when I need to push or do something else strenuous…but until then, I get to be along for the ride as new changes happen everyday for my growing baby.

 

I have a new sense of calm and peace, and while my life is not perfect, I am making a baby and nothing can feel more significant in my life than that right now.  The fact that my husband might be sent away for 4 months for work, or the fact that one of my huge projects at my job might get pushed until the month I am due, well I can’t really worry about those things right now, can I?  Normally both of those predicaments might send me into a frenzy, but now what good is the stress going to do me? All I can do is wait until I know for sure what is happening and then deal with the situations as they arise.

 

But what I do try to deal with on daily basis are the new and constant changes my body is going through, like my acne-of-a-6^th grader, my expanding waist, and my uncomfortable stomach pains due to the digestion problem-of-the-day. 

 

So far, I have been blessed not to have bad morning sickness or any other dramatic health problem.  I realize what I have is a gift and I am intent on not taking it for granted.

 

The first week I knew I was expecting, I think I listened to Maxwell’s “This Woman’s Work” about three dozen times on repeat.  I needed to hear a song like that to help me focus in hopes that the reality of the situation would hit me.  But the truth is, even when my belly is so big I can’t see my own feet, or when the baby is kicking so much in my tummy I feel like it deserves to be grounded for acting with such aggression, I still feel like none of it will actually seem believable until I am in the delivery room, trying to bring this tiny baby into the world…and when I feel those contractions and hear that tiny cry, that is I imagine when it will feel so real I won’t even remember the acne, exhaustion, or feelings of some surreal creature existing inside me…it will finally feel…real.

Tags: Life with Baby, pregnant, stories

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 9:34 am and is filed under Life with Baby, Life with Baby, Susan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.