The Waiting Time

It is so hard to come to terms with the reality that we're nearing the end. And I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest.

I'm not ready to be done.
I love so many things about being pregnant.

I love my ripening belly and the transforming of my body into something softer, curvier and more mother-like.

I love the sense of being claimed by womenfolk, the deep connection with womanhood, and the feeling of interconnectedness with the women in my life.

Above all of the things I love the most about my experience of being pregnant... it is that centering vortex that I will miss the most. It is where I reside quietly and privately. It is a grace-filled and solemn place, like an old forgotten church nave, where the outside world ceases to exist; the whirlwind of people and events cease to matter in the old ways. There, in my new found stillness, I am wholly consumed and focused by the life within. I have carried with me the constant sense of place and time of an ethereal other-world. There, I have had a private conversation within my body and have experienced a sense of wholeness and oneness that is selfishly, all my own. I'm not ready to give that up.

I'm ready to be done.
I continue to count my blessings that the pregnancy has been uneventful, healthy and the baby has been fine. But it is taking a toll on me. Physically the last few weeks have been harder. I'm sleeping less, my body aches in places I didn't used to ache. Standing up, sitting down, walking, bending over, putting my clothes on... little mundane everyday tasks are becoming increasingly challenging. The baby is larger, has less room and positions itself in such a way that I'm always aware of a settling in my back, a pinching in my lower regions, a squashing of my organs, a constricting in my lungs. I long to return my body to some semblance of normality where those sensations are not a part of my every waking minute.

And so now I wait. I wait for the ending. I wait for the beginning. I wait for the before/after chasm to appear in my life. I wait for one chapter to end and another to begin. I wait patiently. I wait impatiently. I wait with both joy and trepidation. But most of all, I just wait.