Waiting

So I had another appt today and this time I was 1.5 cm dilated and somewhere between 75% and 100% effaced. I'm hoping it's closer to 100 %, but this isn't a precise science.

And so, I am waiting. More or less patiently, and usually it's "less". I'm just so eager to meet this little person! However, as I was taking my bath tonight, I realized that I will feel some small vestige of sadness at actually delivering this baby. It doesn't make me any less ready to give birth, or any less excited, but as I watched my baby doing its usual bath time stretching and pushing (Baby loves baths as much as Mom does), I realized that this part of the journey has really been great. And I felt some small regret at how impatient I've been to go into labor. Don't get me wrong, I'm not beating myself up for anything, but I did realize that I want to change my attitude towards the last days of this pregnancy. I really should just enjoy the last days of this special bond with our child. Even if we are blessed with other children, no other pregnancy will be exactly like this one. And no other baby will have exactly THIS personality. So I'm going to try not to wish this time away.

My decision is actually the culmination of about 24 hours of thought and reflection. It was all sparked by a post I saw on the ZZL last night by a man that died of cancer. The post was actually from his blog and contained his thoughts on the championship game last April. It was incredibly moving, because he knew that was the last time that he'd see the Tar Heels play, and to watch them win the national championship was very poignant for him. He wrote about the joy and sadness of such a perfect ending to a lifetime of fandom. It would have brought tears to my eyes in any case, but it was especially incredible to realize that as he struggled to accomplish his last great life task--dying--Tim and I had just realized that we had the opportunity to be parents again. And so life goes on for all of us. For some, like Baby Ewald, that game marked the very beginning of life as a known entity. For others, like LasVegasHeel, it was the final chapter in a story.

Much of life is composed of "waiting", if you think about it. Waiting to be born, waiting to be big enough to stay up late, waiting to find "the one", waiting to find out if you got into "the school", waiting to find "the job", waiting to have children, waiting to die...and so in a way, learning how to wait well is learning how to live well. It doesn't have to be a passive activity, and perhaps shouldn't be passive at all. Perhaps cultivating an active enjoyment of the "in between" moments is really just relishing our own life story.

On a more prosaic note, I'm going to post some pictures of the nursery, which is finally finished! The theme was already chosen for us, since the baby's room had such a beautiful mural in it. However, I love the idea of the "pond scene" in the Land o'Lakes. And Tim and I were married by a lake...so there is a nice symmetry here.

And I'll also post a few shower pictures from my Rochester shower. I haven't seen ANY pictures from my first two showers, but maybe that will change. Hint, hint. :-)