30 Weeks

So, today officially marks the 10-week countdown. That is utterly ridiculous. 10 weeks is nothing. Like, it is so scarily close, but at the same time, I know I have no concept of how radically everything is about to change. And soon.

How did the baby go from the size of a tomato seed to a butternut squash in such a small amount of time? It's like, for the longest time, I was quasi-pregnant with a barely noticeable bump, and then one day, BAM, I wake up with a soccer ball stuffed inside me, unable to completely bend over and waddling when I walk.

And I do waddle when I walk now. Ugh. I'm still walking to and from work, and I'll do that for as long as humanly possible (we only have like, two more weeks of class before finals anyway), but still, I can feel the change in my gait, and it's totally unavoidable. I also stumble more often than usual (so embarrassing). Sometimes I'll be in the shower crying because I'm daydreaming about my son getting picked on when he goes to school (why?). Sometimes I'll be in the middle of teaching and just straight up forget words. In Spanish and English. Pregnancy brain? Every dumb little thing I do, I blame it on the pregnancy. That's what I tell my students to make them laugh, anyway.

Since my last post with Curious George in the swing, P has now put together our pack and play, bassinet and stroller. The last thing he'll contend with before our little guy makes his entrance into the world will be the crib. (There's also the high chair, but we have a little more time before we'll need that.) I didn't know I had such a handy husband.

I guess part of this industriousness was prompted by my waking up one morning a week or so ago freaking out because I was seized by this feeling of things "not being ready for the baby." My husband, ever calm, suggested we make out a list of what we needed to do. It's now up on the fridge, and we've since crossed a few things off.

One of the things on our list that I'm dreading is checking out childcare options. It's a small town, so it's not like there are millions of places, and I've already talked to a lot of my colleagues with children to get recommendations so it's not like we have no guidance whatsoever, but the idea just makes me nervous. The idea of leaving my child somewhere, the idea of the kinds of people who would be caring for him and the kinds of kids he would be surrounded by, the idea of finding a good "fit," the idea of the financial concerns tied into childcare. The whole thing makes me nervous and makes me want to put it off. But we totally can't.

We're also taking childbirth and breastfeeding classes this month. So far, they've been helpful. The instructor is a woman who's been a nurse for like 20 years or something and she's really funny and upbeat. But the other couples who are attending the class, white kids in their 20s (possibly teens?), make me feel like an old, exotic oddball. Like, are there NO other black women giving birth around the same time I am in the entire city?

There are several of my fellow co-workers who are also having babies in the spring or have just had babies, and I came up with the idea to have a "mom's group." In my former life, I would have been so not down with anything even approximating a "mom's group" because it just sounds so basic and trite, but I think we, as professional women at the same institution, should stick together and encourage one another, and moms who have just had little ones can give us advice. Most everyone was really open to it, so we'll see how it goes. Maybe we'll meet at the little coffee shop in town at the beginning of January, once we all get back from winter break.

I'm obsessed with what our child is going to look like, what he's going to be like. There's an entire human in there who is going to come out and be a complete person existing in the world. What does that even mean? We'll get a sneak peek at what he's going to look like in a few weeks with a 3D ultrasound, another one of those things I used to disparage (because they look so freaky), but that I'm looking forward to now. Will I be able to tell whether he'll have my husband's eyes, eyelashes and cute little dimple? Guess we'll see.