Dear Gestating Baby - 30 weeks

Oh, my dear baby girl. How did this happen? There are only 10 weeks left until we meet. Ten weeks! I can't believe it. Although the days sometimes stretched on for what seemed like weeks, the months of this pregnancy have gone by SO fast. They tell me that's what motherhood will be like.


You have been kicking and moving a lot lately. Well, to be more specific, your kicks and punches are getting a lot stronger. In fact, as I typed that you just kicked me again, up under my ribs (I think you're currently in the head-down position, which makes me really happy, but I try to remember that you could still change position in the next few weeks). Gone are the days when I had to be absolutely still and silent in order to feel your little swooshy movements. Now it's more like an insistent demand, no matter where I am or what I am doing, that I pay ATTENTION! RIGHT NOW! I think motherhood will be like that a lot, too.


The other night at our Birthing From Within class your dad and I were asked about what qualities we wanted you to inherit from each of us. I said I wanted you to inherit your dad's patience and my ability to focus and finish what I start. Your dad said he wanted you to inherit his empathy and my memory. If you get all those things, you will be a wonderful, amazing person. Actually, I think you will be a wonderful, amazing person no matter what, but I might be just a wee bit biased.


We have started the process of getting our home ready for you, and specifically getting your room ready. Yesterday your dad moved the cradle into our room to see how it fit and if we needed to rearrange any furniture. It was certainly quite an awakening to see that cradle next to our bed. As poignant as the image is, I don't know for certain if that's where the cradle will stay. The real advantage to it, the bonus of being able to reach in, pick you up, and bring you into our bed for midnight feedings without getting up or even reaching a state of full wakefulness, may be unattainable as the sides of the cradle are quite a lot higher than our bed. Plus, I can't imagine feeding you next to your dad without waking him up, though perhaps sleep deprivation will change him from the light sleeper he currently is. So many things are still up in the air, and though I try to plan and prepare, I know I can't fully know how things will be until you are actually here with us.

Lately there's been a definite shift in our thinking, as we start to realize that this pregnancy is going to end, and that you are going to arrive. Instead of preparing for labour and birth, we are preparing for your presence, the post-partum period where we adjust to being parents and try to figure out how to share our homes, our lives, and our depleted energies with a new little person. The time when we'll figure out how to be a family. It's a little bit scary to think about, but at the same time so exciting. Since I saw your sweet little face on the ultrasound last week, I am more eager and impatient than ever to meet you for real. It can be frustrating, the fact that you are inside me and with me all the time and yet I can't touch you or kiss you. I am so excited about your birth, about tickling your tiny toes and smelling your sweet skin.

See you in 10 weeks, little wonder.

Love,
Mama