The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

I'm pretty sure this bun is done. We got some new glasses for Fox today so he can impress the baby.

Tom Petty totally had it right. Waiting is rough. Today is Baby Fox's due date, and there is no sign of her. My midwife says there is no way to predict when she'll show up, so here we are, just waiting. It's actually pretty hard to believe that this day has actually arrived (whether Baby Fox does or not). It seems like just yesterday, Fox and I were looking at this and laughing with disbelief. That was May 8.

At that point, I did some research on the internet and saw that I had 252 days of pregnancy left. That seemed like an eternity. For those who don't know a whole lot about pregnancy (like me, 252 days ago), pregnancy is considered 40 weeks. However, you aren't even pregnant for two of those weeks because the 40 weeks is measured from the last period, which is usually about two weeks before conception occurs. So at the point of conception, you are really two weeks pregnant. Then you can't find out you are pregnant until about two weeks into it (even with the early test). So you are about a month of the 40 weeks in before you even know it. There, that's my biology lesson for the day.

My first mother's day, May 9, 2010. We were working in the garden - check out my collards.

We went to our first doctor's appointment on May 27 and saw the heartbeat. It was amazing -- just a tiny, rhythmic gray flicker. Then our midwife gave us the statistics of how uncertain pregnancy is at the six-week point, which was honestly shocking to me. I had never really heard anyone speak of miscarriages being so common. We prayed a lot for that little bean with the rhythmic gray flicker.

We went to surprise my parents that weekend in Colorado, where they were visiting my brother for Dad's 81st birthday and Memorial Day. I think everyone was surprised. We went to South Dakota and saw Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood, the Mammoth Site, and Devil's Tower (which is in Wyoming).

The Crazy Horse Monument and the Mammoth Site

When we headed back east after the trip, we had 229 days to go. That was also when the "morning" sickness started. I put morning in quotations because it actually lasts all day, at least for me. The only cure was to eat one Saltine cracker every 8 minutes. On June 9, we had our 8-week appointment. Baby Fox, known to us as "nubbin" at this point, was waving her little flippers all around in a manner very similar to a victory dance that Fox does, and I completely fell in love with her at this point (however, I thought she was a he). And we have 220 days to go, a/k/a forever!

On June 18, we went to West Tennessee to tell Fox's parents the big news and were 211 days away from the "big day." On July 9, we had our 12 week ultrasound, and she looked less like a bean and a lot like a baby. She was very active, though I couldn't yet feel any of it. We were under the daunting 200 day mark, at 190 days left. On July 15, the morning sickness turned off like a light switch, which was super -- 184 days left during which I would not constantly feel one millisecond away from hurling. The most exciting event so far occurred on August 10 and 12-- on the 10th, I felt the first tiny kick, and on August 12, as we were laying on the couch after work, Fox felt her kick. We still delight in feeling her kick and punch around, though these days her space is so small that she mostly just squirms around. The other most exciting event was the full anatomy ultrasound on August 25, when we found out that my motherly instincts are way off, and Baby Fox is not a boy, but a girl. And still 143 days to go. UGH!

I could continue on in this fashion to fully illustrate how grueling the waiting actually is, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that 252 days is a long time. However, a lot of really amazing things happen during that time to keep it interesting. I will miss having Baby Fox as my secret friend, kicking me during conference calls. But now, I am ready to meet her. There's still time to cast your vote in the due date pool.

Baby Fox is now the size of a small pumpkin. I'm really glad we weren't trying to get to the hospital in Icemaggedon 2011. We thawed out enough to see our midwife on Thursday. Everything looks good. It's all about waiting now.