Beatific Acceptance: Baby Will Come When Baby Come

My due date is this upcoming Monday, Valentine’s Day.

For much of the past week, I was convinced it was Go Time. I was just in a constant state of tension, the way I expect you’d feel if you thought a small meteor might hit your farmland at any moment.  After a couple weeks of Nights that Seemed Very Promising! I came to the conclusion that my body basically just falls apart by the end of the day, tired of lugging around what my pregnancy app tells me is the size of a small pumpkin at this time, which makes sense, as I’m picturing the baby with a sinister jack o lantern grin most days.

Feeling swarmed by these apprehensive wide-eyed nerves was not a pleasant way to be walking around or attempting to interact civilly with other humans.

On Thursday, after pacing like Cujo for too many days, some sort of strange veil of peace came over me.

OK baby, I thought, you’re coming when you’re coming and no amount of cursing or cosmic begging is going to change that. I reached some sort of platform of beatific acceptance. I imagine this beatific acceptance will feel slightly out of reach when I’m trying to push a human head out of what begrudgingly fits a Super tampon on a good day, but I’ll take moments of peace when I can get them.

This realization that I have no control, and must cede to a higher power of unknown forces (cosmic, hormonal, who knows)—this is always a good reminder and probably no more timely than now, when our lives are going to be burst open by a tiny needy ball of ruddy pink love.

By day, I work as a Project Manager and one of the four pillars I manage is Time. Telling a client “Ya, we’re not really sure when the Most Important Event of the Project is going to happen,” would be grounds for a deal never getting signed to begin with. And yet, that’s the journey we sign up for when we sign up for Project Baby—no clue really, when the little bean will luge their way into the world like a kid on Disney’s Summit Plummet.

A baby is a reminder to the “Real World” that in the REAL WORLD—of animals, plants, of living breathing things—that we’re guessing half the time and every human, every life, is pretty much a friggin miracle and definitely not one that can be charted in a Smartsheets project plan.

So maybe I’ll have the baby tonight, or tomorrow, or two weeks from now. And while I’m sure I’ll be continue feeling the spectrum of human emotions as I wait for the Grand Arrival, a part of me is good with this journey unfolding as it’s meant to.

Love,

The girl diffusing clary sage and ordering Indian food for dinner

Re: belly & swell: Making the Call to Stop Surfing for Now

[written November 7, at 26 months pregnant]

Yesterday I made the call—hanging up my wetsuit until after the baby is born.

I’ve been slowly and begrudgingly approaching this day, really resisting it, but it was clear to me that it was time yesterday.

It was a gorgeous day at LS—2-3 feet, clean, relatively long periods, mid tide with an incoming tide right in the mid morning (when does that timing happen on a weekend?)

I rolled up to the beach with an open mind as was the custom I’d adopted over the last few months while surfing, my mantra being: If it’s doesn’t feel right, sit tight.

Three weeks had passed since I’d last been out and my belly had really popped. This time, I made sure to wear wet sox under my booties for easy on/off (I’d felt like I was going to have an aneurysm trying to get them off without wet sox before—so hard to reach and this growing bowling ball in my way). The wet sox were a game changer and I also just took my time getting the booties on. It was a warm 45 degrees, sun was shining and wind was low so I had the luxury of moving slowly.

There was a mess of seaweed on the beach and in the water, which I guessed had been kicked up by recent rain and storms. I walked through the seaweed as far as I could before hopping on my board. On the board, I did inchworm move—butt up in the air to accommodate the bump. Paddling was a lot harder—it was tough to find my balance and hard to not feeling like I wasn’t smushing El Bumpo. Three weeks out of the water hadn’t done much for my arms either, which felt like noodles quickly. I paddled out and settled in.

Surfing pregnant has definitely made me more selective. I won’t paddle for anything like I normally would and just getting out. there is a feat in and of itself, so I don’t mind waiting for the right wave to roll through. There was a lot of futile paddling on this day—finding the right spot on my board was proving an interesting challenge—but I finally managed to score a nice right. My balance was off but it felt so good to paddle and pop up. It’s the best feeling in the world and one I never take for granted.

While I caught some awesome waves during the session, the day felt different. Surfing is my happy place, but today I was stressed and worried about falling or hitting my board or getting hit by those around me. I’d finally arrived at the point I knew would come where my valid worries outweighed the fun factor. My (temporarily) final wave was perfect. I rode it nearly to shore, a beautiful right that allowed some fun breezy turns.

At 14 weeks to go before bebe comes, I got to surf through my first and second trimesters safely and for that, I’m super grateful. It’s definitely a tough moment for me, to pause until bebe comes, and then to anticipate more time for recovering, but I’m feeling confident in the choice and committed to what feels right to me in terms of fun and safety in my life right now. I’m committed to doing everything I can to both usher this baby in safely, keep myself safe and get back in the water as quickly as possible.