Thursday, December 1, 2011

Countdown thoughts

I realized today that we have just a little over 2 months to go until we welcome Baby Burris into the world. I do find it frighteningly and beautifully amazing.

My mind is clogged right now with thoughts I want to communicate about this.

Its always something I thought about as a "someday" happening. Someday, we'll have kids. Someday I'll be a parent. Someday is now imminent and it is so weird. So many aspects of it are somewhat unbelievable. I mean, I feel like I just graduated high school a few years ago, but no, I'm in my 30's. Additionally, there has been an amount of time that has passed where I assumed we would just "get pregnant", that it would be easy for us. It took some time, and its now kind of unreal that it is actually real.

I'm going to be honest and tell you that I personally have not yet purchased one baby-related item. (rocking chair the exception). Why? I'm not sure I can tell you precisely. I do have a registry in progress. I know other preggos right now who started purchasing things the minute that they found out. I do find the whole baby-stuff realm overwhelming. I really don't know what I need, and what kind of what I actually need. And I definitely want to weed out those hype items that are unnecessary. I am spending time researching and asking opinions. Also, there are no babies in my family (Bill's family excluded). I just don't really even know where to start with one.

I also recognize that I'm a little abnormal about the whole pregnancy thing. Some people just love talking about it and showing it off. The attention that comes with a baby bump is kind of off-putting for me. People act like you're fragile or sick. Or want to touch you. Or ask you 20 thousand questions and have some very extreme thoughts about things, and I find myself hesitant to talk about pregnancy cause everyone wants to complain about symptoms. While I have symptoms, I overall feel good, and am just happy to be pregnant and wonder how much anyone really wants to know about bladder control or weight gain. Additionally, weight gain is a struggle for me mentally and am really working have healthy thoughts and habits, rather than old self-destructive ones. And when it comes to talking to others, I want to be able to have conversations about lots of things besides just pregnancy and childbirth. (of course, I realize this is slightly hypocritical as almost all of these posts have been about this life transition). I just want to be normal.

On the other hand, it has been interesting and fun to see how much joy and emotion it has brought out in some of my elderly clients as they relive their own pregnancies and children.

 Its not that I'm not excited (which to some it may seem this is the case). On the contrary I am very excited. I actually think that I will be a good parent and that this kid is going to be a game-changer in the world. Bill is going to kill it (not literally) as a father. I mean, he's going to be good, real good. I do believe that its not going to be easy, but I never expect anything to be easy. People have been raising kids for thousands of years. I tend to be cautiously optimistic. I try not to get my hopes up too high, because, truth is, tragedy happens.  Its like I always have to mentally prepare myself, and then be pleasantly surprised and then immensely grateful.

And just for this opportunity, I am immensely grateful. To be entrusted with a human being. its bigger than having the right "stuff" on your registry, bigger than experience, bigger than money or status or anything. its a hell of a responsibility. But I'm in. Sooner than I realize.

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