I have less than a week of pregnancy left. Wow! This second pregnancy has blasted by. We will be meeting our baby girl any day now. The excitement, anticipation, nervousness is mounting. Everyday, I wake and wonder "Is today the day?"
LO waited until the absolute last moment to come of her own recourse. At 10 days past due, I was scheduled for induction only to have LO start the process 2 hours before my appointment. When I woke P to tell him I was in labor, he rolled over and told me to go back to sleep. He thought I was delusional since I desperately wanted a natural childbirth. 7 hours later, she was in my arms, wailing. She came on her own terms. I should have known then what I was in for!
Who knows what this birth story will be like. No two are the same. I am equally mesmerized and freaked out by the whole thing. As I skim the pages of the childbirth book, I feel reassured that my body will remember what to do. Yet what it has to do is daunting, to say the least. Stuff stretches (no matter how many Kegels you do, you ain't ever the same), fluids secrete, your placenta pops out, and you're constantly aware of the possibility that you may or may not "po po" (as we call it in our spanglish house) while pushing out your precious bundle of joy. Beautiful.
Yet it really is beautiful. You will never appreciate or admire your body as much as you will those moments after giving birth. You just gave life to another human being. Nothing is grander. It may seem ordinary because we all made the same entrance into this world. But once you've been on the pushing end of it, you realize how huge it is (as is that HEAD!) Because I'm suffering from a major case of Prego Brain, I can only resort to the cliché: it is a miracle.
My plan for the remaining days of pregnancy is to enjoy solo time with LO, smile each time I feel a kick from inside (a sensation I may never feel again), SLEEP, watch movies with P, spend time alone because it will NEVER be this easy until the girls are older. Yet I do not wish to speed up that process. It goes fast enough as it is. I hope to use the most valuable wisdom acquired from the first baby (another cliché): This too shall pass. Sleepless nights, sore nipples, explosive diapers, crying bouts quickly turn into 11 hour sleep nights, deflated boobs, potty training and tantrums.
What does not pass? The LOVE and MEMORIES.
Those live on forever.
