Waiting

I very clearly remember waiting for Lillian to finally arrive.  For some reason I had the idea in my head that she was going to be two weeks early.  I decided to start my maternity leave two and a half weeks before my due date.  I got the baby room all ready, all the clothes washed, bags packed and freezer stocked with meals.  Well, two weeks before my due date arrived and no baby came.  The next week arrived and still no baby.  Then along came my due date and, yep you guessed it, still no baby.  By this time I had come obsessed with washing my floors.  I vacumed and mopped my floors at least once a day.  I was determined to come home from the hospital to a house with clean floors.  Yep, obsessed is definately the word to use.


The waiting probably would not have been too bad if four people who were due after me did not have their babies before me.  Every time I heard about someone having their baby, anger would begin to rise up in me.  Poor Dean was the very gracious recipient of this rage.  I specifically remember an evening nine days after my due date.  Dean and I rented "Baby Mama"..... Note: don't rent movies about people having babies when you are overdue.  Halfway through the movie I got a phone call from a very good friend of mine who's baby was due two weeks after mine.  As soon as I heard her voice I could feel that rage begin to bubble up.  Yep, she was calling to tell me that she had just delivered a baby girl.  SERIOUSLY!!!!!  At that moment I felt like my baby was a very mean spirited prankster who was out to make me as miserable as possible.  I somehow found it in me to, very nicely, ask how her labour went and then even sound excited for her.  Of course I was very happy for her but my self pitty overtook that feeling.  I hung up the phone, unpaused the movie, and started to bawl.  My poor husband did not know what had taken over his wife and I'm sure he began to pray very hard that God would take away this crazy lady in his family room and bring back his wife.  I can honestly say that in that very moment, I was convinced I would be pregnant forever!  Well, obviously I was not perma-pregnant.  Lillian decided to arrive four days after that with her little lungs ready to scream for the next four months.  About two days after she was born I wished she had stayed inside me just a little bit longer.  Yes, I am fickle. 


With baby number two I decided early on that I was going to brace myself for this baby to be late.  I was determined to be mentally prepared.  However, when I hit the 7 1/2 month mark my determination was beginning to disappear and I found myself hoping that this baby might come just a little bit early.  Then, when I was a little less then three weeks away from my due date I got a phone call from a friend who was due a week after me.  Yep, you guessed it, she had her baby 4 weeks early.  I don't know what happened inside me, but the rage that I would have expected turned into pure dread.  All of a sudden the memories of a very long labour (with an epidural that didn't take) and a screaming colicky baby came flooding over me.  I was relieved that it was her who had her baby and not me. 


So now I am one day away from my due date and I am in absolutely no rush to get this baby out.  I know that life is going to change when this baby arrives.  I know that instead of having a kid, I will have kids.  I know that sleeping through the night will be non-existent for a while.  Don't misunderstand me, I also know that this baby is going to be an amazing blessing that we are going to love and cherish forever and I am very excited to meet him or her.  I simply feel that I could wait another week for that meeting.  This may also stem from the fact that my husband is a truck driver and is often out of town and I spend about half the nights of the week telling this baby to wait until Daddy gets home.  I do have a backup plan if Dean is out of town and I thought I would be alright if he wasn't here, afterall I've known for months that chances of him being there were about 50/50.  But as the day draws near I realize that, as much as I love my backup people, I want to share the moment with Dean.  Seeing Lillian for the first time was the single greatest moment of our marriage.  All of a sudden we were not just two people, we were a family.  The instant we saw her we were both in love with not only her, but eachother.  I will never forget the moment Dean held Lillian for the first time.  I have never ever seen him so in awe.  I don't want that moment to come hours after this baby is born, I want that moment as soon as the baby is born.  Maybe that's just pure selfishness but as a mother who spends my life being unselfish and putting my kids first, I feel like maybe I deserve that moment.