Waiting for the Mother Ship

I am waiting with ever-increasing impatience to be beamed aboard the almighty Mother Ship. The life-changing event of motherhood is now nine days past its due date, and I am beginning to think the great goddesses in the sky are never going to call.

I am on the one hand desperate to bid farewell to the burdens of pregnancy (among them: fluid retention, exhaustion, and the unspeakable, hideous evil which is haemorrhoids...), but also terrified about the only other alternative to my ‘condition’: the pain of labour, sleep deprivation, breast-feeding in public, changing nappies (I gag at anything remotely disgusting – soggy Weetbix once set me off) and being responsible for some poor, unsuspecting creature 24 hours a day.

There are two things that are giving me some comfort as the clock seems to slow down and days seem to have that perpetual Sunday feeling, when you’re trapped inside with only motor cross on the telly. One comfort is that I won’t be the first to endure the horrors of labour – many greater and lesser women than I have been through childbirth and survived (and gone back for seconds), and secondly, that it’s simply too late to turn back now.

The inevitability of it all does have a certain calming quality, in less than 72 hours if the baby has not decided to leave the abode I’ve been so generous to provide for 9 months, he or she will be thrust into the world through induction. I am relieved that there is actually an end in sight, and that I will finally be able to stop worrying and anticipating the next stage in this journey.  I like to think I’m adaptable upon landing in new situations, that I learn quickly, that I’m not resistant to change…I hope these things I’ve bargained on don’t just prove to be myths I’ve created for myself over the years. Time will tell how I navigate parenthood, and the inevitable changes it brings. I’m excited. I’m scared. I’m ready. Wish me luck.

Mel