Denial (Wk 37: PREGNANCY)

January 10, 2006

At 37 weeks and 3 days, no one would be all that shocked if I went into labor tomorrow. I hold this knowledge in a detached sort of way, as if thinking about someone else. It's someone else who will have a baby next month, someone else who will soon nurse for the first time. Someone else will bring a baby home. Someone else will do those night feedings.

As for me, I'm in a perpetual state of pregnancy. I've grown used to it. I'm not even uncomfortable. I don't have to pee as much as I did in the first trimester, I have no swelling, and I sleep well. My body has made the necessary adjustments for carrying a nineteen inch life form in the belly.

What Would Freud Say?

I'm not being sarcastic here. Really, I am quite comfortable in my present state and take comfort that I've probably still got another two weeks of it. Oh, and two weeks? That may as well be two years, but I'm not sweating it.

This newfound patience astounds me. Is it some sort of subconscious defense mechanism to help me through the last stretch of the wait? Is it a form of denial stemming from a buried worry that I'm not ready for a baby? Maybe some of both?

Who knows. What I do know is that I expected to be bursting with eagerness to meet my baby by time I'm reached this point. Instead, I want to prolong the inevitable.

And Yet...

Of course, I still get tears in my eyes when I do think about the baby's birth. I can't imagine the joy of kissing the foot that's been kicking me. Or finding out if it's a boy or a girl!

I can't imagine holding a baby without having to ask the mama's permission and eventually hand it back. This baby will be mine.

I can't imagine holding a baby knowing that there's no where else that baby would rather be.