Pregnancy Diary Week 40: Things I'm Looking Forward To

Week 40

So today is my due date. Wow. But when I woke up this morning there were no fanfares, no fireworks, no balloons or bunting. No baby either. As I have read approximately 8000 times in my pregnancy apps over the past few weeks, only 4% of babies arrive on their due date, and so this day is of course fairly nominal. It is actually highly likely that it’s the one day I can relax, safe in the knowledge that I won’t go into labour. However, despite this it still feels pretty special as the date I have been anticipating for the last nine months, ticking off the days and weeks and counting down towards. It feels pretty spectacular to have made it through 40 weeks of pregnancy, through all the physical and emotional challenges and to be at the point where our baby is developed and ready and will, whatever happens, arrive soon. So although it is highly likely that today is not THE day, it feels right for me to mark the occasion in some way and spend some of today thinking about the things that I am looking forward to in the coming weeks and months. Some of them are pregnancy related and as much about waving goodbye to the old as well as welcoming the new. I am looking forward to being able to roll over at night without having to first psych myself up for five minutes. I am looking forward to being able to pick something up off the floor without assuming a wide legged giraffe pose and spontaneously groaning. I am looking forward to my bladder having some kind of respite and not feeling like it is being encroached upon by a family of burrowing chipmunks. I am looking forward to being able to eat something without feeling like I’ve swallowed a barbed wire fence. I am looking forward to weighing less than a dumper truck full of sand bags, being driven by a rhino, wearing a deep sea diving suit. I am also looking forward to wearing my engagement and wedding rings again, having taken them off a few weeks back in anticipation of my hands turning into balloon model versions of their former selves. More significantly though, I am looking forward to all the lovely and magical bits of having a newborn. I can’t wait for all the dreaming and wondering and anticipation to become real, as despite making it through 40 weeks of pregnancy, the fact that we are having a baby somehow feels no more tangible than when I looked at that pregnancy test all those months ago and couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. I am super excited now about holding my baby and feeling his warmth against me. I am desperate to see his face, albeit a face that is likely to be squashed and swollen and little like the face they will grow into over the coming months, but to see his tiny features and expressions will be incredible nonetheless. I am looking forward to kissing him and comforting him and doing the best job I can possibly do to keep him safe and nurtured and loved. I am looking forward to becoming a mother again, a feeling that nobody can adequately describe or explain. I am looking forward to my son meeting his new baby brother and, whether or not he is happy or excited at first, watching them together and seeing the love in our family grow. I am looking forward to slowing down and looking at the world through the eyes of a baby again, to appreciate small things and experience all the sensations we often rush by without noticing. I may well still be sitting on this sofa in another week’s time, but today is my day to feel positive and happy and lucky and to look forward to everything that is to come.