We're Here

Final weeks of pregnancy, the life I've dreamed of, and the ledge before the greatest unknown.

Photo by Ali Caudill at Freebird Imagery

We’re here. In the life I’ve dreamed of. We’re here. Our birthing month. We’re here. On the ledge, gazing into our greatest unknown leap ever. We’re here.

Everything lately has felt beautiful. This harmonization between getting stuff done and enjoying each day that is passing. June went by in a blink. At the same time, everything feels purposeful and intentional. I’m grateful for all that I’ve been doing in these last weeks and am proud that the to-do list keeps getting shorter, which is its own relief.

Last week we went to a white tie ball and I wore a formal gown at thirty-six weeks pregnant and felt beautiful.

That surprised me a little. How fully everything felt right. Everyone we talked to that night was genuinely excited for us, the kind of warmth that fills a room and makes you feel like the whole thing was arranged just so you could feel it. My body was very much present for the evening too. When I stand for long stretches now there is a heaviness in my lower belly, the round ligaments making themselves known, that reminds me clearly and without apology that I’m carrying something significant. So I

found a table. A group of women had claimed it and they welcomed me in without hesitation, and I just sat and talked and watched Rob mix and mingle nearby in his white tie, which, I will just say, he looked extraordinary. These are the kinds of evenings we came to DC for. I loved being there beside him even from a chair.

Two days later, we were at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Saturday, we made our way down to the National Mall in the record heat to watch flyovers cut across the sky above the Capitol, America turning 250 with all the fanfare this city could produce. When the weather shut everything down we walked home. Friends landed at our place for a bit, and then when it was time to go back out my body said absolutely not. The house emptied. Rob and I stayed on the couch and watched the DC fireworks on television.

I did what I could. I listened despite the FOMO being very real. That felt like its own kind of victory.

A year ago I was not here. Not in this city, not in this life, not in this body. Something I keep thinking about is how much can change in a single year and how you really cannot rush it and you cannot always see it coming and somehow it arrives anyway.

July is our due month. I know I already said that and it’s something I just keep repeating to myself. It’s both everything I know we’ve been waiting for and surreal that it’s here.

Baby has started to move down. Registry items arriving, ready to be unpacked, put away, and being logged so thank you notes don’t fall through. The home birth supply list ordered, midwife home visit to set everything up complete. The birth certificate packet mostly handled. Baby laundry to do and fold. The Montessori nursery patiently waiting for it to become the focus. Rob tells me we will get it all done and I believe him because we always do.

Some days I get a lot done. Last week I ran errands over in Virginia and made a full day of it. Chiro, a seamstress and shopping. I came home feeling productive and proud of myself finding a little groove in this life. The next day I did admin from the couch, took Axel to the park, made dinner, and we went to bed early. I have been here before, learning to let my energy direct the day instead of the calendar. My chronic migraine recovery years taught me that lesson the hard way, and I am grateful I already know how to listen. I expect those same lessons to come back in full force postpartum.

We did our maternity pictures this past week. Our original date had to be rescheduled because of weather and it landed on a weeknight, which I always try to be mindful of around Rob’s schedule, and he was just game for it, which he always is. As it turned out the Supreme Court released final decisions that day and his stream schedule had already adjusted, so it felt like the timing arranged itself. We went to a neighborhood neither of us had been to before. He looked so handsome. And the way he looks at me right now, carrying our baby, his baby, sends something warm all the way through me. We walked hand in hand and I let myself be completely in it. We took Axel too, so he got to be in the photos, which felt exactly right. Those are the moments I keep trying to stay inside instead of moving past.

When people ask what my plans are for the baby I tell them honestly: keep it alive. I say it and I mean it and I think it might be the most grounded answer I have. I have read the books, listened to the courses, found a team I trust, and I am still holding all of it with open hands because I know enough to know I do not know what is coming. Scited is the only word for it. Excited and a little scared and both energies at the same time without one canceling the other out.

Something that has been surfacing lately is that for nine months this baby has known only me as home. I have kept this pregnancy close. Mostly just Rob and I touching my belly and I liked it that way. I am not naturally good at sharing, I know this about myself, and soon I am going to have to figure out how to hand this little person to other people, coordinate visits, let the people who love us love them too. I have been pretty direct with my side of the family: first three months, come as a helper or wait to come as a visitor. I’m anticipating what I need. I expect to want to be completely Velcroed to this baby. And underneath all of that is something that feels less like worry and more like a quiet certainty. I don’t quite know how to navigate all of it yet and I also just don’t care. I will figure it out.

I just want to make life fun for them. Rob and I are both Virgos, serious by nature, and I have been thinking about how being playful is something I did not really learn until my late twenties. I want our baby to get that early. To know from the beginning that life is a game worth enjoying and that wonder is not something you have to earn.

On the other side of all of this I hope I get to say that I surrendered. That I trusted. That I opened and flowed and moved through it with grace and stayed soft when softness was what was needed.

This woman is close now. Each day I am drawing closer to meeting her.

I’m nearly ready.