The Countdown

I am as big as a house now. Well into the 200’s, I am seeing numbers that my High School self would have shuddered at the mere though of. People are less than tactful, and my formerly broad shoulders seem to be getting narrower and narrower as each comment chips away at my self-esteem. “Oh, you must be due any day now!” (at 30 weeks), “Oh, are you having twins” or “Are you sure there’s only one baby in there?” (at 33 weeks), “Wow, you must be ready to pop!” (at 35 weeks) “I really don’t think you need that roll” (From my mother). And the worst, “Hey Chubs”, compliments of my brothers, father, and my loving husband. Admittedly, I had put on weight I didn’t need, and my face had doubled its size. It was July now, and I was days away from my due date. My ankles were so swollen that people cringed to look at them, my butt measurements easily rivaled my waist measurements, and still my hands found foods, which found my mouth. I was powerless against rich foods, salami, chocolate, tuna, and peanut butter. Ty played his part by bringing me home desserts from business meetings. I would groan in despair at the lusciousness of tall chocolate cakes covered in chocolate chips that he brought home, yet growl at him if he came near it with his own fork. My only salvation was that my due date was approaching, and I was about to shed a good 15 pounds pretty quickly.

My emotions were running haywire as well. There were days when I would cry with anticipation of our son or daughter, and other days that would find my curled up into a nervous ball of worry wondering how we would ever manage to raise a child. We were the most selfish people I knew, how would there ever be room for another being in our lives? Futhermore, what if we messed this up? What if we raised a drug addict or worse? What if our child denied God some day? I was not nonchalant towards the issues, I knew we were being given something huge, and it terrified me.

Yet, when I closed my eyes, I could see the back of my child’s head as he or she slept, the way the his or her hair rested on their neck, and the gentle rising of their back. I could see tiny fingers wrapped around my larger ones, and blue eyes searching my brown ones. I could hear coos and gurgles of laughter, I could hear my child saying my name, “Mommy”, I could hear cries for hunger, cries for attention, cries from a good spanking, well-deserved. I could feel my child suckling at my breast, all of me pouring into this life, nourishing this baby. My Mom drew an outline of the baby on my belly so we could see how big he or she was getting. We listened to our baby's heartbeat and imagined future lectures. My impatience for the birth day grew, and when July 20^th, my due date, came and went, my anticipation heightened.

Rusty Bedsprings

My nocturnal escapades had only just begun. One particularly sunny morning I awoke, feeling blissfully rested and happy, and turned to greet the love of my life. Ty was looking at me uneasily, with concern and doubt covering his face. This not being his typical morning expression, I questioned him about it. He explained my antics from the night before:

Before falling asleep, I made sure to apply a Breathe-Right strip, because I had gained so much weight that the extra fat on my neck was choking me, not to mention all my swollen olfactory glands were slowly blocking off my air supply. The strips were a necessary tool to survival at that point. Apparently during the night I rolled towards my beloved, waking him, and pulled off my strip. At this point, I waved it at him and began to sing, "La la la la la!". Shocked, he asked what I was doing, which woke me up. I told him to be quiet, I was trying to sleep, and rolled over and went back to sleep.

All the rest of the day he looked at me oddly and kept his distance. I, on the other hand, chuckled over his rendition of the incident at intervals during the day, imaging how hilarious I must have looked, waving my Breathe-Right strip at him.

On a separate occasion, I had one of those fateful dreams from the depths of my early childhood. In my dream, I was using the bathroom. In real life, I was living out that dream... still in bed, of course. I woke up with a gasp, understanding that I was wet, but not grasping why. When it finally hit me I had just wet the bed, me, a 23-year-old adult, I was mortified. I glanced over at Ty, and was relieved to find he was still sleeping and didn't know about my accident. I crept into the bathroom, humiliated, and finished peeing in the proper receptacle. At this point I had fully waken up, and saw the humor in the situation. I grabbed a towel on my return to bed, and spread it over the small dark circle on my side of the bed. As I crawled back onto my soiled sheets (it was the middle of the night! There's always time for cleanliness in the morning) Ty woke up and asked what the matter was. "Nothing, Honey, I just wet the bed. It's ok."

For some reason this answer pacified him and we went back to sleep.