The Anticip……..ation of Baby Hab.

(Surely if you are a fan of Rocky Horror, you get the title’s reference, so I won’t need to explain it. ;))

I feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve. Like the early morning of Christmas Eve. The hours before everything begins but during the time when all the preparations are already underway. The tree is decorated and lit, the gifts are all wrapped and tantalizingly near at hand, the food is baking in the oven. The guests haven’t arrived yet, or you haven’t started getting ready to go travel to your destination. It’s the waiting time. The in-between time.

It’s that awfully sweet hour when you’re not quite sure that Christmas will actually happen.

There are moments in my day (usually in my night) when I find myself pressing a hand gently against Mel’s bottom as she pushes back against me…and I wonder if she’ll ever arrive. I’m not exactly eager to see my pregnancy end. As I stated in the last post, I have truly enjoyed being pregnant. But I am more eager to meet my daughter than I am to continue being pregnant with her. That’s a given. She is already developing something that I can recognize as the beginnings of a personality. For instance, she prefers certain sounds to others (her daddy’s voice is a big favorite–she’ll actually move toward the side where his voice is coming from). She also loves being touched (when I drape an arm across the top of my belly, she’ll press against it; when my hand is resting on the side of my belly, she finds it). I pat her when she pushes up against my hand or arm–and I imagine patting her as we rock and cuddle.

Just like I know Christmas will come every year, and it will bring with it certain expected traditions, I know that Melanie will arrive, and she will bring with her certain expected unknowable changes. Just like I know Christmas will come but still struggle through the waiting time, I know that Melanie will come but still struggle through the waiting time. My pregnancy has felt like it has flown by. I can’t believe that I’m already within 20 days of my due date. Under three weeks of waiting left. It seems impossible.

But then I am filled with the anticipation of the waiting period. Wondering if she’ll come, when she’ll come. Wondering where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing when I go into labor. Wondering where Robert will be, what he’ll be doing. Wondering what she’ll look like. Wondering what she’ll feel like. Wondering if she’ll recognize our voices, like all the books say she will. These are the times I feel like I just can’t wait another minute. (Of course then the panic of anticipating actual labor descends like a fog, and I just want to keep waiting.) The anticipation is sweet…and unbearable at the same time.

I know Melanie will come when she decides to come. But now that she’s physically capable of survival, I am so ready for her to get here.