Surreal

I know I've said it before, how it doesn't really feel real that we'll have another baby soon, but I've been thinking about this a lot today, and for the sake of sorting out my thoughts, I need to write about it (consider this one of the more journal-oriented posts.)

It's funny because, as this pregnancy progresses, it feels like the concept of having another baby becomes increasingly foreign to me. Perhaps I only think that because I'm so far removed from when we found out I was pregnant and all we experienced, but still.

I took a pregnancy test, had my beta levels increase, started to show and wondered what the university students around me thought, did the NT scan, found out we're having a girl. All of these things happened, and it seemed real. Exciting, at times unbelievable so, but there was always the reality there.

I'm trying to think at what point my mind started becoming disconnected to the fact that everything I'm experiencing means 'baby.' I think it might have been when I hit viability, and have hit ever significant milestone since then. Pretty much when the possibility of having a real live baby became...well, possible.

Weird, huh?

And as time has progressed since viability in early June, time has flown (with the exception of moments in August...ha.) For instance, I'm going to be 38 weeks on Thursday. How the heck did that happen?

I don't feel like the person who might have a baby any day. I feel like that must be someone else.

I go through the motions of getting ready for this baby. I bought nursing tank tops today and a gown that I hope to labour in. I have a birth plan written up. I'm crocheting a blanket that I'm praying won't unravel and that my little girl can use. I have a crib and 1/2 a dresser full of pink, purple, white and green clothes, and a bow board covered in bows and just awaiting photos of our little one.

And yet...it's so hard to imagine when I look in the mirror that there is a baby in this stomach of mine. That at one point this baby will want out, I'll labour and deliver this child one way or another, and that firm belly will be gone, replaced by a newborn. A little person, with arms, hands, feet and a face. A bum to clean, toes to kiss, hair (or lack thereof) to play with.

What's even harder than all of this to imagine is that I am only 2-4 weeks of this happening. My limit in terms of over-due-ness is 13 days overdue, which is when I went into labour with Elijah spontaneously. 13 days overdue is 4 weeks tomorrow. So, 4 weeks TOPS.

4 weeks is not long!!! And my due date is even sooner.

Wild.

And not that I'm hoping for it, but reality is that she could quite possibly come any time now. (as an aside, I googled average length of pregnancy and found a study that showed that 1st time mothers on average go to 41w1d, and that the average for subsequent pregnancies if 40w3d. Interesting. That puts me in labour during the craft show. I'll just have to make sure I go on Friday! ;-)

Anyway, the point to all of this rambling is that I'm ridiculously close. 2 weeks ago was not that long ago, and 2 weeks from now is insanely close.

And did I already say "Where the HECK did week 37 go?!" Yes? Sorry for being a broken record. It's my way of attempting to process things.

I have so many hopes for this labour, delivery, postnatal period, baby, my family. It's overwhelming to even think about it. I labour and deliver at home. I hope to do it pain-med free. I hope to not bleed a lot (like, no hemorrhaging like with Elijah.) I hope to not tear as badly. I hope to protect my baby from unwanted baby-holders at church. I hope to breastfeed. I hope to not get mastitis. I hope this baby has hair. I hope Elijah doesn't beat on this little one. I hope he learns to give her kisses and love her.

I am so excited, but it still seems so abstract.

I wonder what she'll look like? I have a feeling she'll look like Elijah, with dark hair and little, dark eyes that barely have a blue tint to them for all of a day, and then go murky brown like Elijah's did. At the same time, I had a dream before I ever got pregnant with this little girl. I dreamt that I gave birth to a baby girl (painlessly and standing up, no less!) and that the name we've had picked out for 1.5 years now was the name we gave our new daughter. I just took one look at her and said aloud, "Well of course your name is ________! How could it be anything else?" and she was blonde with blue eyes. But then later in my dream she was a young girl about 4 years old, and she had sweet, straight, shoulder-length red hair. She was the prettiest thing. I wonder if that was just my imagination, or not? Is that what my daughter will look like? Matt's eyes are not brown like mine, so I secretly hope that one of our children will have his green eyes rather than my brown ones (even though it's actually one of the things I love most about Elijah. He wears his eyes better than I do.)

Anyway, this is starting to become a rambler, which is a sign to wrap it up. I want to be in bed before 10pm tonight anyway.