Drawing Up the Eviction Papers

Ten days before my mother's due date, I was born. It's now ten days before my due date and The Bug shows no signs of being similarly eager to join the world. In fact, it seems he'd be perfectly happy to stay right where he is for nine more months...apparently, he is under the impression that he is a baby elephant. The bright and shining light, of course, is that I know that if he stays in there for 22 more days, my midwife will smoke him out of there, but here's hoping that won't be necessary because--gah! 22 more days!

Right now, I'm vacillating rapidly between "I want this kid out NOW" to "Maybe he could stay for just another couple of weeks." That second thought surprises me because truth be told, I'm not one of those women who has deeply enjoyed pregnancy. There are some things, like feeling him move around, that have been pleasant, but for the most part, I've seen the past nine months not in terms of the journey, but in terms of the destination. Because really, the journey wasn't so much fun, what with the constant nausea and worry about miscarriage in the first trimester, the contractions and associated worry about pre-term labor in the second trimester, and the recent inability to, you know, exist without discomfort...oh, and the ridiculous and completely unjustified worry about stillbirth.

And yet, once he's out, there's no going back. He'll never kick another coaster off my belly, he'll never get startled when I drive over a bump and hook both knees and fists into my sides, I'll never again be the only person who knows him--and very selfishly, I'm not ready to share him yet.

That being said, if he's still in here in 10 days (or god forbid, 22), I'm sure I'll be feeling much more generous about this whole sharing-him thing.