Push

It wasn't long ago that I was sitting in the waiting room of the dr.'s office across from a fellow mama pregnant with their fourth child. She was nearing the end of her pregnancy and I wasn't too far into mine and I said to her that she must be getting anxious for the baby to arrive. I remembered the anticipation I felt at the end of my pregnancy with Ryker. 

It took me off guard when she said she wasn't in a rush. For her, she said it was easier to have number four contained with three little ones already on the loose. With four weeks until the expected arrival of our second baby I get it, for more reasons than that one.

Ryker and I were recently at a friend's house for a play date when I realized that the four of us visiting were each moms to boys. Our oldest all the same age and the second round ranging from about nine months old to in utero. As play dates go, we were snacking and enjoying some adult time with the sounds of kids-not-sharing squabbles and big truck wheels rolling across the kitchen floor in the back ground. 

It was when the conversation took a turn in the direction of waters breaking, rushes to the hospital and an inhumane number of hours of contractions that the reality of the nearing arrival of our baby hit me like a swift punch in the face.

I had mentally fast-tracked from carrying this bundle in my belly to visions of us home and settled in, completely blocking out the in between. The all-things-physical that come with the birth of a beautiful miracle. 

It couldn't have become any more clear that I would have to push this baby out of me then when earlier this week as I was strolling down the hall past the delivery rooms in the hospital on my way to an appointment that I passed an open door with a man's voice coming from behind the closed curtain saying, "Push. Push. You have to push."

Seriously. What the F#*%! The walls started closing in on me as I quickened my pace. Somewhere along the way I had fallen for the magic bean story I told our inquisitive preschooler when he asked how the baby got in my belly and then how he will get out. 

At 36 weeks pregnant I wonder how all of a sudden we came this far so quickly. I can't wait to see his face, feel his little fingers wrapped around mine and to love and feel more loved in a way so huge I know I can't fathom now, but at the same time I'm in no rush to throw the beautiful chaos of a new baby into our world. But not being in a rush doesn't slow the speed of time.

These last weeks of post-labour and delivery anxieties are going to feel like forever, but before I know it I'll be wondering if "it's time". And in the next moment we'll be en route to the hospital and again I'll hear a voice telling me to "Push". And just like that I'll be holding him for the first time.

I'll blink and we'll be home and up through the night rocking his swaddled warmth and perfection. And, as I beautifully witnessed surrounded by those moms with their two boys, I will remember how it was all worth it. 

Feb. 26, 2015