Waiting for a baby in December in a little northern city, with snow falling and the neighborhood Christmas lights twinkling all but perhaps an hour or two of these short winter days, is kind of nice, actually. Well, if you are not the one nine months and four days pregnant. (Easy for you to say, my daughter will say. My son-in-law is ready to move on with life too, as he paired down his office schedule this week for the baby who isn’t here yet. His sister is pleased, as she was off in Argentina climbing mountains and getting engaged to the sweetheart she met in Haines at her brother’s wedding, and hoped the baby would wait until her return to Juneau– today.)
As the planner in chief, I am especially glad that the hospital is just a mile and half away and we could walk on sidewalks that the snow plow crews clear and sand if the car won’t start or we have a flat tire. There is a sled by the door and an all terrain stroller, too. Plus I have another daughter on the same street and it takes less than five minutes even on slippery walks to march down hill to her house, or she up the hill to ours, when she gets the midnight call. Grandpa Jim says he will start sleeping on the couch if this goes on much longer, rather than driving out to his place after dinner.
Still, there is a kind of deep breath feeling about this waiting time.
There is something bigger than just us in accepting the mystery of birth, and it is good. There isn’t much in this world we can’t predict anymore. I love that the biggest thing– life itself, runs on its own clock and calendar.
Of course, now that we have settled into these long mornings in the kitchen, the walks in the snow with little James, the naps for them and swim at the downtown pool for me, the stories, the cookies, my daughter’s knitting, evenings with James and his Play-Doh and me and my british murder mystery, it is almost impossible to imagine that any minute now there will be a new baby in the house, and then, everyone will be so busy and messy and needy and sleep deprived we will say, “What were we thinking, rushing this along?”
