We're having a baby tomorrow. Tomorrow everything changes. I'm beyond excited, of course, but I've been having a hard time describing, even to myself, the strange bittersweet feelings that I've had over the last couple of weeks. [If you'd like a musical accompaniment to this post, open this link in a new tab, click play, and then come back. I'll wait... Thanks to Tom for suggesting the perfect song to fit today's mood.]
Knowing exactly when our new player arrives has brought everything into
sharp relief, made the line between before and after perfectly clear. It really does feel like I'm "sitting here in limbo/waiting for the dice to roll." I have loved the past six and a half years of being on this two-person team. Team Shackmano has excelled at spur of the moment adventures, late night shows, lazy weekend mornings in bed followed by mid-afternoon brunches, and wine-soaked nights on the couch. Tomorrow we add a new player to the team, and with that addition, everything changes. I know it's going to be an incredible, wonderful, heart-exploding change for the better, and I can't wait to see what new adventures await, but it's still a little sad to say goodbye to the old days.
Just when I was starting to feel like I was just a completely hormone-addled crazy person, I remembered that I had read something a couple of years ago that described this "in-between" time of the end of pregnancy. Happily, I was able to find it again. I literally wept with relief and recognition when I read this piece by midwife Jana Studelska again.
The last days of
pregnancy — sometimes stretching to agonizing weeks — are a distinct place,
time, event, stage. It is a time of in between. Neither here nor there. Your
old self and your new self, balanced on the edge of a pregnancy. One foot in
your old world, one foot in a new world...
Ok, the reference to the heroic tales of Odysseus may be a smidge on the melodramatic side, but so am I at this point so it resonated with me. The whole thing is not too much longer than what I've posted here, and it is well worth a read.
By this time tomorrow, I'll be holding our son in my arms. I haven't wrapped my mind around it yet, but my heart is already there.
The
last days of pregnancy — sometimes stretching to agonizing weeks — are a
distinct place, time, event, stage. It is a time of in between. Neither
here nor there. Your old self and your new self, balanced on the edge
of a pregnancy. One foot in your old world, one foot in a new world. -
See more at:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/the-last-days-of-pregnancy-a-place-of-in-between/#sthash.9N8e9lpb.dpuf
The
last days of pregnancy — sometimes stretching to agonizing weeks — are a
distinct place, time, event, stage. It is a time of in between. Neither
here nor there. Your old self and your new self, balanced on the edge
of a pregnancy. One foot in your old world, one foot in a new world. -
See more at:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/the-last-days-of-pregnancy-a-place-of-in-between/#sthash.9N8e9lpb.dpuf
The
last days of pregnancy — sometimes stretching to agonizing weeks — are a
distinct place, time, event, stage. It is a time of in between. Neither
here nor there. Your old self and your new self, balanced on the edge
of a pregnancy. One foot in your old world, one foot in a new world. -
See more at:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/the-last-days-of-pregnancy-a-place-of-in-between/#sthash.9N8e9lpb.dpuf
