It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a month since I last posted, even harder to believe that my due date is only days away.  We’re ready, more or less, or ready as we’ll ever be I guess!  I haven’t completed everything with work as much as I’d like it to be, but I’ve accepted that things just won’t be as wrapped up.  My taxes aren’t done.  There are still parts of the house that need organizing and/or cleaning.  We haven’t bought a stroller yet.

But.

We’re organized enough to have made space for baby’s things.  We’ve bought a car seat, a few new clothing items, some wipes and some diapers.  We’ve been given a bassinet, clothes and a carrier.  I’ve washed, folded and organized everything and put it in baby’s temporary ‘room’ (he/she will sleep in our room to start and we’re far too superstitious to make a nursery!).  I’ve had a week ‘off’ work in which I haven’t worked much and have really enjoyed just doing things around the house.  JP and I have enjoyed several dinners out and time with friends.  I’ve gone out with just girlfriends too.  It’s been relaxing.  I feel like I’ve had down time before the craziness to come.

In the last month we had a crazy week of snow all now followed by the early signs of spring.  The cherry blossoms are finally blooming, crocuses have popped their heads out of the ground and the daffodils have quicky followed.  I heard my first lawn mower and smelled fresh cut grass for the first time in who knows how long.  Spring is coming and it seems fitting to bring new life into the world when things are getting ready to grow and bloom after months of sitting idle.  Kind of like me.   I feel good, I feel excited.  But I still of course feel scared too.  I know that things can still go wrong.  I try to focus on all that has gone right and the fact that I’ve no reason to believe that the birth won’t go well too.  It may not be exactly as I envision but I’m going in expecting that.  I can be flexible, I can be adaptable, whatever gets baby out healthy and happy.

I’ve imagined a number of posts over the last month that I haven’t written.  I had imagined something about looking back on the last 10 years with JP and reflecting on them prior to the big changes to come.  To do some lamenting over the things we’ll lose by becoming 3.  But I suspect we’ll gain as much, if not more, than what will be ‘lost’.  I see baby as joining our life, rather than completly changing our life to fit baby.  Sure, things will be different.  We won’t be able to travel the way we have, things will take longer, we’ll need to be more conscientous with money etc. but I really like to think we’ll just modify the WAY we do things rather than stop doing them (or at least not all of them!).  We’ll lose a lot of the freedome we’ve enjoyed as a double-income-no-kids couple.  But I can’t wait to see JP as a father to a living child.  To see how both of us will grow as parents.  Even if it does mean that I’ll no longer be the person who comes first to JP.   We’ve had some difficult times these past few years, life changing events that have been the hardest I’ve ever endured, first losing Mom and then losing our first baby. I know becoming a family will be another life changing event but I’m so glad this one is a generally ‘happy’ change (assuming all goes well of course – the glass-half-empty part of me has to qualify that statement, can’t help it!).  We’re due some happy change.

I’d also imagined a post about looking back on the pregnancy, and hopefully I’ll actually write that.  I’ve not really written much about how it’s gone, the different ways baby moves or how I’ve felt as I’ve grown bigger and bigger.  All in all it’s been pretty good and I can’t complain about much.  I’m just happy to be this pregnant, to have made it this far and to have gotten to know baby this well.

Or a post about being grateful.  We’ve had a rough go the past few years sure but I am still so grateful for the amazing husband I have, the beautiful neighbourhood we live in, the roof over our heads, the good friends and supportive family.  Sure there’s still drama, things are by no means perfect and I would give absolutely anything to have my Mom back even for a second.  Still, I am thankful.

Or a post about my Mom.  How it feels to be a motherless daughter going into this next phase of life, hopefully this time as a Mother of a living child.  I miss her.  I think of her everyday, I dream about her.  Sometimes I wake up crying.  I feel her absence acutely at times and persistently as a dull ache.  As Greg Laswell sings ‘it comes and goes in waves’.  She was an amazing Mom and I try to focus on the lessons I’ve learned from her, not all that I’ve lost with her untimely death.  I try to trust that I have the strength that she instilled in me to do this motherhood thing though I’m plagued with doubt and wish she were here to reassure me.

Perhaps at some point I’ll expand on these mini-posts.  Or maybe I’ll have baby before I have time, it could be any day now.   For now I’ll just enjoy watching the signs of spring springing and hope that I’ll be one of them soon!

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