With less than 24 hours before
the scheduled birth of our second daughter Kiki, I thought it might be
interesting to try to describe what is going through my head right now. It is a lovely mixture of fear, excitement,
elation, anxiety and anticipation which eliminates any hope of a good night sleep
and does a number on the digestive tract.
When we were anxiously waiting for Coco to be born, our friends Scott
and Ron used to tell us, “just enjoy the feelings of uncertainty and mystery as
you sit at a major crossroads in your life”.
Definitely not what I wanted to hear at the time, yet sage advice
nonetheless. This may be the last time
in my life I am feeling this, so I might as well enjoy it.
The feeling of being past the 38th
week of pregnancy feels a bit like the week before Christmas when I was 8 years
old, times 10. There is so much
anticipation that I could implode. I
remember being a kid and wishing that I could magically transport to the
morning that Santa arrives. Over the
years I learned to just not focus on it, because I could drive myself
crazy. I am channeling those tools a lot
lately.
The difference between Xmas and
pregnancy is that the latter can come at any moment; it is not a fixed date. So I need to not obsess over the due date,
lest I go insane, but at the same time, I need to ready to rush to the
hospital at a moment’s notice. I used to
pray that I not get the call at 4pm in the afternoon and need to battle the 405
traffic during rush hour. It could take
three hours to get from Century City to Thousand Oaks at that time.
The other difference with Xmas is
that we are not unwrapping a present that we will forget about 6 months from
opening it, we are going to meet our daughter, who will be one of the most
important people in our lives!! So many unanswered questions:
·
Will she be healthy?
·
Will there be complications to the delivery?
·
What is she going to look like? (she is going to
be a mixture of three different races and could have a wide variety of physical
features)
·
What is her personality going to be like? Will she and Coco get along?
·
Are we ready for this?
·
Will she discover the cure for cancer? The first female president of the US?
I can’t imagine what it must be
like to be a woman giving birth through all of this. They probably have all of the above emotions
plus need to worry about pushing an 8 pound bowling ball through their crotch.
Experiencing a birth and the
anxiety leading up to it are one of the true joys of life…but I am ready to be
on the other side of this and meet our precious little Kiki!