Consumed

By the end of the day, I am exhausted. My back hurts. My abdomen hurts. It takes effort to move. And I'm ready for bed by about 2pm.

But when I crawl into bed, cocoa butter slathered over the belly, compression stockings yanked up past my knees, I can't seem to close my eyes. To-do lists are scrolling through my head. Build the furniture. Find some shelving. Wash the onesies in Dreft. Sort the clothes by age-size. Install the carseat. Pre-register at the hospital. Figure out daycare. Figure out everything else.

A couple of nights ago as I lay in bed and the adrenaline started to surge, I said in the dark, "Michael, please tell me everything is going to go just fine."

"I can't know that for sure," he answered.

I frowned, discouraged. I thought Michael had learned the important lesson that it is okay to lie to your wife under two circumstances: if it makes her feel better about herself or if puts things in perspective, allowing her cycle of all-consuming worry to disengage.

"Just lie and say something trite, so I can go to sleep already," I said.

When I finally drift off to sleep, I'm still at work, dreaming some of the most bizzarre dreams I have ever encountered. I read about this in one of our pregnancy books, that it is very common to start having strange dreams in your third trimester. Partly because of, you guessed it, hormones (the answer to every weird symptom, thought, action or intention during these 9 months), and partly because of subconscious anxieties that need to be worked out in some form. I sure thought I did enough of that during the day, but apparently I have residual issues because they plague me for those 8 hours of seemingly constant REM. Example: last night I dreamed that we had our baby, and kept him in a cat carrier crate, which was lined with sawdust and a water bottle. Michael had insisted that the baby would be fine on his own for hours at a time, like a pet guinea pig, so we left him to sleep while we went to a movie. When I went to check on him at the end of the day, I was horrified to find that the crate had fallen between the bed and the wall, tipped upside down. Panicked, I opened the door, and instead of our baby, out climbed a kitten, who proceeded to trot across the carpet and poop.

Then I woke up to pee, for the 6th time that night.

Dear friends, I am exhausted. My waking hours are now spent trying to stay awake. And in my fuzzy sleep-deprived mind, my thoughts wander in excitement to our little arrival. How will the delivery go? Who will be the first to meet him after he arrives in this world? What outfit should we take him home in? Will he have a huge head? We need to pack a hat for him just in case... Will he come early? I need to get my overnight bag ready... and buy a new bathrobe... and find a pediatrician...

....and chill out.