The Night Before Baby Day

I am sitting here with about a million thoughts running through my head and figured I'd better get some down before they are gone. It is not often that a person gets the opportunity to put a coherent thought to paper (or in my case, keyboard) right before having a baby! Labor is a lot of things, but predictable isn't usually, and shouldn't usually, be one of them.

Anyhow, since I am writing this it means that our baby has decided he doesn't want to enter this world on his own and needs a bit of help. Let me just say that I really don't believe in this; I really, truly, firmly believe with every fiber of my being that babies come into this world when they are ready. A due date is simply a day when a baby may or may not come by. And there have to be women like me who fall on the opposite side of the average forty week pregnancy in order for it to BE an average. I am proud that I have carried this child for nine months. I am proud that I have provided nourishment for him, that I have given up all the things that could have harmed him, that I have given him everything he needs. I am not proud that the pregnancy has to end this way. I believe that birth has become something that is very mediated by doctors. I was just twenty years old when I gave birth to Calli, our firstborn, and though that is really no excuse, I feel I was unprepared to say no to all the interventions forced upon me. There really are way too many interventions nowadays when it comes to labor and delivery; inductions, cesarean sections, pitocin, epidurals, episiotomies, and so on and so forth. There are way too many UNNECESSARY interventions. Yes, there are times when these things are truly needed, but most of the time women are pushed into them by their doctor. The c-section rate in this country is 33%, meaning one out of three women will have one. How crazy is that! The worst part is that these are becoming completely elective. And inductions, oh inductions! I know pregnancy can be miserable, but it really is worth it to let your baby pick his or her own birthday rather than force them out when they may not be ready. A due date can be off, sometimes by as much as two weeks. Or, for whatever reason, a baby just isn't ready to come out yet! Due to extenuating health circumstances (mine unfortunately, not the baby's!) he is going to have to come out on a chosen date. I am saying lots of prayers that he will CHOOSE tomorrow for his birthday and I will go into labor tonight.

So enough about that and onto more sappy things. It is always an emotional time when you expand your family, no matter how many are already in it. We have two beautiful, sweet, spunky, sassy, intelligent, fun girls already. They are turning into great people and it is so fun to watch them grow and change. So it stands to reason that having one more child to watch transform before our eyes will be awesome as well. By this time tomorrow (hopefully!) we will be a family of five. We will have one more sweet hand to hold, one more mouth to feed, one more spirit to love and cherish. I am a lot of things right now: scared, nervous, happy, sad...but above all, I am excited. I am excited because tomorrow I get to hold my third child, my first son and probably my last baby in my arms. And there is nothing in the world like holding your child for the first time. I have held him in my belly, under my heart, for nine months now and felt him grow and move. I have already been his mother for all that time and taken care of him in a way that no one else could. But now it is time for him to greet the world and let others take care of him. He will get to meet his Daddy, whom I know is as excited as I am to see him. He gets to also meet his big sisters; although Serena doesn't know what is going on, Calli can't stop talking about how she is going to hold him and feed him when he gets home from the hospital. She even wants to help change his diapers! And soon enough he will meet his grandparents as well. I know I can't wait for my mom to come out here in a few weeks. Although her main reason is to help, I really just can't wait to see her and visit. I know I could do it alone, as any mother could, but having my mom by my side is going to be something else. I can't wait for her to see how her granddaughters have grown over the last six months since she has seen them and I can't wait for her to hold her first grandson. She was blessed with three daughters and then two granddaughters and after all this time will have a boy in the family! I know both of us are a little concerned with what to do with one of those ;).

You always think you can't love another one as much as the others. But each time you learn that you can and that your heart just gets bigger to accomodate another. In a way I do feel sad for my girls. I feel sad that it won't just be "me and my girls" at home anymore during the day. I feel sad that they have to now share me with another one. I felt all these emotions when we were getting ready to welcome Serena too, so I know they are normal. And I also know that once he gets here and spends some time with us, it will feel like we have always had him in our family. Eventually we won't be able to remember what life was like before him!

We are ready. The basinett is waiting upstairs in our room. The clothes are folded and placed in the drawers. The spot in the car is cleared for the extra carseat. And most of all, the spots in our hearts and arms are ready and aching to hold him.