Lady in Waiting

Today, you are two days past due. The child I mourned the loss of has returned, according to Adelaide. She told me you would that sad, cold day in mid December when we found out the little life inside had passed. She was matter-of-fact about it.

This pregnancy was more guarded, more mine than the others. We announced at 20 weeks this time...no early announcements we had to choke back, no broken façade to hide in public. We found out you were coming last June. The days and hours have flown and lingered eternities since then. At once joyful and confident, at other times fearful and cautious, excited, and exhausted. I know I am a low maintenance pregnant woman and my condition hasn't changed my interactions with my family much. At this moment, I feel heavy and tired and slow. I feel ready to have you in my arms and out of my flesh, where you keep growing, and stretching, and tearing me. My son. My SON. Such a foreign thing to even think with two daughters all this time.

My belly won't ever be the same. My heart won't either. Adelaide smells it in the air, and she is scared to death. I make this judgment by her recent pattern of manic joy followed by crushing sorrow every night just before bed about some new affront. It breaks my heart, how she thinks I could ever love her less. I tell her a mother's heart gets bigger every time...it doesn't just learn to accommodate more guests. That her space is hers-forever and ever and ever. No matter how shitty she ever gets with me or what mistakes she makes, she is forever my baby. Gillian is harder to discern-how she feels about it all. But some pre-teen angst seems to emerge from time to time that exhausts me completely. She can't wait to love you, and love you, I think.

We discussed having you ad nauseum...for years. We would decide it was a good plan, and then that it wasn't...that we are too old and tired, then that my heart would forever be missing a piece without you. Now we are on the precipice of knowing you, and yearning to have you tangible and here and stop talking in uncertainties about you. So, we're here, still waiting.