it's a little bit funny, this feeling inside

Li'l Ham two weeks ago at 37 weeks

This is such a weird time in my life. So weird, and so awesome! People have been asking me if I'm "ready" for the baby to come. I interpret this to mean one of two things—there is the practical "ready," like is my hospital bag packed (yes), is the crib set up (yes), did I hire a cleaning lady to come and deep clean my apartment so I wouldn't have to stare at a dirty floor during labor (yes). But really, even though I've checked off many of those practical boxes, you're never really "ready," are you?

Then after the practical "ready" is the physical "ready." "I'm sure you are just READY for this baby to get out already!" "Aren't you exhausted?" "Are you just... done?" Well, yes and no. I told my midwife today that I actually really like being pregnant! I'm okay waiting till the baby's ready to come. The baby hasn't given me much trouble and I'd be totally ungrateful if I complained about being pregnant. I'm tired of having to pee all the time and not getting a good night's sleep, but if that's the worst that's going to happen during pregnancy—I'll take it.

It's really such an amazing thing and—trite as it sounds—I realize that this is the last time I'll ever be in this season. I mean, I hope that we have more children, but this is the last time it'll just be me and the baby inside. There will be more distractions, I might be in a more fragile physical state next time, I just don't know. So I'm trying to enjoy it.

The other thing that's been weird about this season of life is the change I've undergone that hasn't been physical. Not the "I'm going to be a mom!" change but the "I'm not really a mom yet, what am I?" change. Lots of people probably know that I left my old job back in March, which wasa decision I made in the fall, and it just so happened that I found out I was pregnant that week too. Which was great! That's what I wanted and hoped for. But it shifted my focus from "what job am I going to look for now?" to "what can I do to get ready for life with a baby?" I had grand plans to find a different job when I was planning all this out and I just threw it all aside, other than some freelance projects I have worked on over the past few months. I feel like living in DC has made me feel like I have to explain myself all the time when it comes to work because that's how most people define themselves. You can basically predict how any conversation with a new acquaintance in DC will go—it inevitably starts with "so, what do you do for work?"(followed by "so, where are you from? No, not where do you live, like where are you FROM, originally?") and I don't have a good answer! The good answer, I realize, is "I'm growing a baby—that's a lot of work" but for whatever reason I haven't been able to muster up the courage to tell people what I do all day. I take care of my house, I make stuff, I visit people? I don't know. It sounds dumb. That's probably why I couch my answer in some sort of vague answer like "oh, I work from home," which is technically true. 

What further complicates all of that is that I was never really happy with the type of work that I was doing before I got pregnant and I spent many tearful nights trying to figure out what I wanted to DO with my life and I never got a good feeling about any of it. I mean, I guess it's not that complicated after all—what I want to do is raise kids and be a good mom and contribute to society in some way, and maybe "some way" is by raising good kids and not by spending my evenings and weekends doing work I was only mildly enthusiastic about at times. 

I have a feeling that once the baby does come and I have a little bit more purpose than merely being a vessel of sorts then some of this anxiety might be alleviated. I realized the other day at brunch with some friends how boring my conversations have become these past few months as I blabbed on about red raspberry leaf tea and doulas and birth stories and prenatal yoga and other things completely uninteresting to people who don't care about pregnancy or babies. I have always found these things totally fascinating but if I didn't have Robbie there to turn and find someone else to talk to I probably would be ignorant of the fact that some people just don't care. (Only slightly kidding—though this is how I feel any time the conversation turns to airline points too so it's only fair that he and I treat these conversations similarly.) But I really don't have anything else to talk about right now except for how I just finished five seasons of Doctor Who in a matter of weeks and some people find Doctor Who more boring and foreign than pregnancy so I'm just kind of stuck. 

Unless, of course, you want to talk about Twin Peaks—I'm totally your girl. Team Coop all the way.