tick tick tick

The other day a friend asked me why I’m not panicking. Hard to say, really…. but it’s sort of because I don’t have time to panic. Eight months ago, while considering the reality of my pregnancy, I didn’t exactly panic, but I was certainly scared and nervous and overwhelmed. More than anything I was mourning the end of my independence, and today, magically, I’m not too worried about that anymore. I’m too excited to see my baby, something I never really contemplated before being pregnant, or before I started to feel his regular movements really.

Things have come together, and the time is flying. All things considered, my summer has been pretty great. I love my clinical work, I have felt amazingly good, it hasn’t been too hot and I’ve felt extremely blessed by friends and family – holding baby showers, giving gifts, offering much-needed advice.

I’ve got a few days left of my internship and then I can mostly focus on moving and “nesting.” F and I went to a day-long childbirth class at the hospital where we’ll have the baby today. I learned a good deal, and it was really nice to see the birthing “suites,” which are actually quite homey and designed in a way that promotes comfort and bonding. I’m not sure what it means that I fear the extremely rare and unlikely side effects of the epidural more than going through the whole birth experience (completely guaranteed to be excruciating) with little or no medication. I think it means that on some level, I am fundamentally illogical and unreasonable. But I’m leaning toward a natural labor completely, or at least as long as possible, depending on the circumstances. We’ll see how that goes.

In other news, I just found out law school classes start before Labor Day, which could be good. I may get to attend one of each class before I have the baby. I guess I’ll take the risk of going into labor at the law school, but at least I’ll have a syllabus and a feel for my professors.