T minus 4 weeks

In all likelihood, I will still be pregnant 4 weeks from today, but my due date was 4 weeks from yesterday, and despite the fact that I know the odds I still hold out hope that I won't go past my due date. So here we come to the end at last. Eric and I were excited to see the month of March come to a close, our last really difficult month of residency. After 12 years of post-high school education the end of formal training is in sight. Literally less than three month until graduation. And then April began yesterday, a month where we came home and spent an hour having lunch together, which is a rare enough event on the weekends. I can't remember the last work weekday we had lunch together. As we sat over our chicken salad sandwiches marvelling over our daughter's rambunctious movements, the revelation hit us both that this month (probably), we become parents. Wow. You'd think this would have hit us by now, but the whole concept is still a little surreal. It's funny to think of the anticipation of the arrival of a human being that is actually only centimeters from my fingers right at this very second, but in some ways still so far away. It's amazing to know that she has all the capacity to survive outside of me, with maybe a little help from her parents. :)

People like to ask us if we're ready. That term "ready" could mean anything. Do we have a car seat and clothes and some diapers? Yes. So we're ready in that sense. Are we mentally prepared to take over the care of a vulnerable newborn infant? Um, maybe. Am I sick and tired of this pregnancy and just want it over with? No, so maybe I'm not "ready" for her to come yet, until the end of the month and the end of the majority of my commitments. Who knows? Hopefully we'll be ready when she's ready. Or at least as much as we can be. Hopefully the worst is NOT yet to come, but instead the best. Hopefully all the labor complications that I worry about won't really come to pass. And hopefully I will actually GO INTO labor at some point, too.

Just a few more musings from that neurotic pregnant obstetrician. :)