Oh, Hurry Up Already!

I'm not "over" being pregnant, really I'm not.  Sure there are times when I fantasize about what it will like to have my own body back and belonging to just me.  I think about what life was like back when I didn't singe my growing belly on hot pots on the stove, when I didn't have to plan out my path for walking through the dining room to keep from grazing the table, the exercise bike, the chairs, or any number of the tools that Tim has laid out what with all the work he is doing on the house.  But I'm not "over it" the way other women talk about being "over it."  I haven't had severe morning sickness, as a matter of fact I had exactly zero morning sickness.  I didn't have major episodes of sciatica or terrible heartburn (mind you, I DO have heartburn, but it's manageable).  I haven't gained 60 pounds and I have pretty much been able to eat what I want and sleep okay. 

Oh, but I cannot wait to meet my son.

I have dreams about what he looks like; I daydream about the things I'll say to him when he gets here.  Tim has had dreams about him, too, and comparing notes we have found that both of us think somehow this little boy is going to come out with blue eyes.  Neither of us have blue eyes, but here and there, they are found in the family, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

It's just that, well, we've been waiting for so long for Patton to get here.  Technically, the first conversation we had about trying to have kids was in February of 2009.  That's two and half years we've been anticipating this new addition to our little family.  Especially after the miscarriage I had a year and a half ago, there were times that I felt like Patton just wouldn't ever get here.

But here we are, 13 days away from my due date and so excited we're about to piss ourselves.  So no.  I'm not over being pregnant.  But damnit!  I can't wait for him to come on out and meet his family! 

I'll leave you with an excerpt from a book I read a while back called "Baby Catcher."  My miscarriage was one of the darkest times in my life, and I found little comfort in the words of others or the scientific explanations or the idea of my baby in some heaven with which I was unfamiliar.  But the following passage changed the way I felt about all of it, and is part of the reason I am so excited to finally see Patton. 

Colin, my twelve-year-old son, discovered me late one rainy afternoon sitting at the kitchen table, a damp Kleenex crumpled in my left hand, wiping my eyes as I tried to compose myself for his sake. It was the third week of January, two months after I’d miscarried a pregnancy, but I still found it impossible to get through a day without at least one meltdown into misery.

Colin asked, "Are you crying about the baby?" and when I nodded tearfully, he said, "Well, you just have to have another one, Mom, because it’s a Spirit Baby, and you should be its mother."

I must have looked puzzled because he said, "Don’t you know about Spirit Babies? How could I know about them if you don’t? I mean, you’re my mom!" But he could see my perplexity.

So my first child, this not-yet-teenaged boy, pulled a wooden chair to my side and draped his thin arm across my shoulders, saying, "Well, Mom, here’s how it is. See, I was one myself, so that must be how I know. Anyway, every woman has a circle of babies that goes around and around above her head, and those are all the possible babies she could have in her whole life. Every month, one of those babies is first in line. If she gets pregnant, then that’s the baby that’s born. If she doesn’t get pregnant, the baby goes back into the circle and keeps going around with all the others. If she gets pregnant but something bad happens before the baby’s born…now listen, Mom, because here’s the really cool part. It goes back into the circle, but it becomes a Spirit Baby, and all the other babies give it cuts. Each month, it’s always first in line. Isn’t that great?

"So you just have to get pregnant again, and you’ll have the same Spirit Baby. If you don’t, though, then the baby circle will just beam that little Spirit Baby over to some other woman’s circle, and it’ll be first in line for her. It keeps being first in line somewhere until it finally gets born.

"But it’d be a shame for you not to have it yourself, because I know how much you want it. So you just have to try again. Mom, remember that baby you lost before I was born?" I nodded wordlessly. "Well, that was me. Really. I’ve always known I was a Spirit Baby. I mean, I know what I’m talking about here, Mom."