on being pregnant

At the prenatal yoga class that I sometimes go to there is a part of the class where we go around and say something about our pregnancies. It is suggested that we say when we are due, where we are delivering, and if we have any complaints or observations. Yesterday in class my observation was that suddenly I feel very conscious of there being a little person inside me, something I think I've been feeling for a few weeks now.This might seem like a silly observation, but it's pretty hard to wrap one's head around the fact that there is a baby (a little person!) growing in there, someone who will come out and cry and nurse and grow and become an adult some day. Which is funny, because it happens all the time and everyone you meet was once inside their mother. But it's still pretty hard to comprehend.

After class I chatted with a woman from my birthing class who also happened to be there. We stared at a group of parents and babies in the yoga studio lobby (a reunion of a birthing class that had met there months earlier) and tried to understand that in about 5 months we would also be holding babies that age, and eating snacks at our own birth class reunion. My classmate admitted that she still couldn't match the baby that was coming with the movements in her belly, that the whole thing was still really abstract to her.

It feels fairly presumptuous to say that I know Smudge, but I am very aware of his general position in my belly, and can more or less feel and see his foot when he sticks it into my right side. He's been in this position - head down, butt on one side of my belly button and feet on the other - for about a month. I'm hoping that he stays that way for the next 8 or so weeks until be comes, even though his foot is rather uncomfortable. I find myself massaging it, gently willing him to pull it back in so I'm more comfortable, and he complies. Christopher likes to joke that Smudge isn't even born yet and we already don't get along. And I am just so in awe that there is a foot (two, hopefully, plus some legs and the rest of a baby) inside me.

Now that Christopher has finished his semester, we feel that Smudge's arrival is imminent. He's not due for another 8 weeks, but we have been warned to be ready for him in 4 weeks. And that's really soon. We still don't have much for him - just clothes, a stroller, a breast pump, a ton of blankets and quilts. At least he'll be fed and warm if he gets here early! In any case, the next few weeks will be about gathering what we still need, and making the apartment ready for a baby. I'm impatient to start, but also anxious about the transition we're about to make. There's no turning back!