I love being pregnant, especially now that the baby is just about full-term. I wouldn't mind staying pregnant another four weeks.
All the negatives are nothing compared to the positives. While it's true that I'm uncomfortable, fatigued, sleeping poorly, have dragon-esque heartburn, haven't felt sexy in months, and can barely stand waiting to see our baby, I do want to stay pregnant a little while longer.
I've never been this connected, this bound to another person before. That isn't (or isn't just) a metaphor. I am physically (and emotionally and spiritually and every other -ally) wrapped around and completely responsible for this person. Me, just me.
And what's going to happen when I reach that stage of labor? A nurse, a stranger, will hold my baby in his or her hands. Someone else is going to cut the umbilical cord. And my baby is going to be out here -- out there -- in the world, separated.
Suddenly, it will only be a metaphor. The baby will not be bound to me.
Is this belly going to feel empty? It probably won't matter much; there will be a million sensations, moments, and memories taking place in those first hours and days of our baby's life.
But it doesn't change the fact that giving birth is going to be the first of many instances in my life as a mother that I will have to come to terms with distance and separation from someone to whom I have been irreversibly bound in my soul.
So, yes, I will stay pregnant a little longer, and smile through it, because every stretch and kick and hiccup that belongs solely to me is numbered.
From the haunting a cappella song "Mercy," by Sarah McLachlan:
With sweet breath you'd come to warm me
But I held on too hard to only a memory
You lie there on the swollen ground
Deserted in your heart
Still longing for what yesterdays lost
And for all that tomorrow might bring
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