39 weeks pregnant

I initially started blogging from reading various mom-blogs filled with homeschooling tips and Pinterest-worthy recipes. It seems like a large percentage of the blogosphere is occupied by mom-bloggers. And recently it has come to my attention that I am soon becoming one of them (gasp).

But, as it turns out, carrying a little human inside of you for 9 months does change you as a person.

While before, the PhD experiments or the looming deadline of an organic chemistry problem set was the black hole my mind got sucked into, now it’s Youtube videos on exercises to naturally induce labor or recipes to increase my date intake without me developing some sort of date aversion.

After I got permission back in April to stop trekking out to lab everyday , it’s been three months of discovering a new rhythm of life. One not dictated by the availability of the UV-Vis reader or the schedules of the trains that shuttle me back and forth to my multiple labs.

It feels soul refreshing, and I haven’t felt this way in a long while.

I sleep in until 7:30 before rolling my unwieldy body to the side of the bed and wrestling it to a standing position with effortful grunts.

I try to go outside for short walks now that the weather is hot and humid as long as the wildfire haze is not too bad.

And then there’s sitting on my birthing ball doing pelvic tilts while I type away on my computer, giving instructions to my undergrad about the experiments for the week or writing a grant for the startup I’m still working part-time for.

My bags are packed and waiting for us in our hallway – it could be any time now.

I’ve purposely cut back on social appointments and evening engagements, as we enter into a time of waiting.

“It feels like the days before you’re going to go on a long trip,” I said to Peter one night, “That mixture of anticipation and excitement, the surreal feeling that you could wake up on the other side of the world in under 24 hours.”

The difference in our case being not knowing when the flight actually departs and having a vague, abstract idea of what the other side of the world is like (feed, diaper change, sleep, repeat?).

The midwives tell me that it’s a good thing we can’t control when labor begins – for all the science that we know, it’s still this untamed, wild, mysterious thing that happens when your body decides it’s ready, and all you can do is go along for the ride.

It’s about surrendering to the unknown.

I’m still watching Youtube videos on possible signs of early labor, just to be prepared.

But a part of me knows that no matter how much information I am armed with, when the time comes, I’ll just have to let things unfold as they will.

That’s when my trust and endurance will be put to the test and there will be no way but through.

Are you ready for this, people ask me, how are you feeling?

How can you be ready for one of the biggest changes in your life, is my question.

But maybe being ready is not a feeling; it’s what happens to you when you dive headfirst into what you cannot see and find that

somehow you are swimming in waters on the other side of the world.