We're halfway there. Today. How did it happen, how did the time fly by? Oh, that's right, I've been asleep for much of the last 20 weeks, and time does skirt along faster when you're not awake to count the minutes as they pass. Halfway, though, wow.
As you may have deduced from my first-half-of-pregnancy posts, pregnancy has been tough for me. I have been ridiculously sick, I have been ridiculously tired, I have felt ridiculously bisonesque. And, fine, I'll go ahead and say it: I have had hemorrhoids. (Just keeping it real.) But, my feelings toward pregnancy symptoms are nowhere near my feelings toward pregnancy.
They are worlds apart.
Mike and I stood in our kitchen four months ago and stared at each other, at the two-lined stick in my hands, then again at each other. Then we blinked. Then we tilted our heads. Then Mike said, "Wait, I don't get it." And I said, "Yeah, I don't either." It wasn't how I imagined we'd celebrate the news, and I imagined how we'd celebrate often and in great detail. It's how it happened, though, and it was perfect in the way things just are in life. Unexpectedly better than anything our imaginations worked up for us beforehand. Because when it really happens, it happens in color and it's beautiful.
I don't know if I've ever really told the story on this Web site of how Mike proposed to me, and I'll try to keep this short because it's so not the point of this post, but for my entire life (and for much of my relationship with Mike) I envisioned how I would be proposed to, and the real thing didn't match the vision. We were in Florida, on our way to the airport after a week-long vacation. It was early, I was tired, I was anxious in the way most people are before flying and traveling and Where is the rental car receipt? I NEED A DIET COKE, WHY DID WE BOOK THIS FLIGHT SO DAMN EARLY? Mike wanted to stop at a beach to take sunrise photos before we headed to the airport, and I was grouchy and didn't want to. I gave in, I forced a smile, I was a giant pain in his ass. As we walked back to our car through the sand, Mike started fidgeting and twirling me and pausing to look at the water, and I was all LET'S GET ON THE ROAD, TIME WASTER. Then he turned me to him, and I knew. I knew what the nervous look on his face meant, a look I don't see very often because Mike so rarely gets nervous. He pulled the ring out, he said some very sweet things, and before he was done, BEFORE HE EVEN ASKED THE QUESTION, I took the ring out of his hand. NOT. HOW. I. ENVISIONED. IT. (Probably not exactly as he envisioned it either.) (We still laugh about that though.) Not how we imagined it, but vivid and perfect all the same.
That's all to say that life has a way of falling into place in grander and more exquisite ways than our very creative imaginations allow us to think up.
Here we are, halfway there. On a road we thought about being on for ages, for a solid year at the very least. On a road we prayed we'd be on and hoped we'd be on and now that we're actually on it, nothing looks like we thought it would. The colors are blinding.
*****************
Now, a word for you:
The other day I whined about not feeling you kick enough and all the way to work today, as I listened to old-school Blue October, you jammed along, lightly and reassuringly kicking me as if to say, "Mama, you're so needy, but, FINE, here."
I wish I could say that's the last thing I'll convince you to do to ease my mind, kiddo, but, HA, you got dealt a very interesting mother. I seriously think your father wanted to have you so badly so I'd stop making him do things solely for my entertainment.
I hope you're safe in there. I hope you're warm and enjoying all the things you're demanding of me (like Skittles, where the hell did that one come from? Also apples, which are seriously the one consistent craving I've had throughout this pregnancy). But above all, as cliche as it is, as many times as it's been uttered by every mother who has ever come before me, God, I just hope you're healthy. Be well for me.
*****************
20 weeks:
Don't look at the dirty bathroom or the woman who may need her own zip code very soon. Instead! Look at me wearing pre-pregnancy jeans!