Even if i go late (which i'm anticipating), still... each pregnancy has a beginning and and end, and i know that the end will come.
i've been feeling incredibly healthy and strong (still - at 37 weeks). But some days - it creeps up on me... vulnerability.
It's a certain heaviness... or a feeling almost like i can't breathe... or a fleeting panic at an inability to perform a simple task that was so easy a few months ago... And i feel tears come so easily - not from sadness or frustration - but just from the beauty and aching fragility of the expectant state... i have to explain to Neil... "i'm ok. i just want you."
And i do...
There is warmth and peace that radiates off his back when i press myself too close and he finally has to shrug me away saying, "someone is being too kicky..."
We roll over away from him, giving him some much needed space. My son and i. i'm heavily turning my enormous body away as he twists and turns in his baby home within me... and i feel that subtle communion that happens between mother and child in utero. It's a strange sightless connection between us. i imagine him all curled up - and i wonder if he imagines me at all... Gently i lay my hand on an outstretched limb that is making a strange lump on my abdomen... He's there.
My hands are thick and veiny from the extra blood flow in my body that sustains and nurtures his little body as it grows. My movements lack their usual quickness, my thoughts are plodding and sluggish...
A friend who is a mother of six phoned. We hadn't talked in a couple of years and as we caught up on my most recent pregnancy, she asked me, "So how do you feel about your big family?"
And i responded, "i'm doing the very best that i can..."
i am satisfied with that answer.
And i welcome the vulnerability that i've found myself in as i prepare myself for what's to come...
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