The Waiting Game

Imagine being a child on Christmas Eve eagerly anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus and his reindeer, waiting for him to pop down your chimney and bestow unfathomable gifts upon you.  Imagine how that sleepless night feels, crawling by at the speed of an obese snail.  Now replace Santa with a baby, and replace one night with many...



We are officially playing the waiting game.  The house is clean (super clean!), the nursery area is set up, meals have been prepared and frozen, and all tasks seem to be completed in anticipation of of new addition. However, anticipation is all we are going to get at this point.  The doctors gave us two due dates.  First, they estimated that Sam would be born on January 6th.  Then, they revised their thinking and said January 11th. Now it is January 13th, and the day rolls on.  Elizabeth is filling her time with working from home, as she found out that her maternity leave cannot officially begin until the baby is born.  So, instead of twiddling her thumbs, she is keeping busy with work and, in so doing, extending her leave from work.  Her 2 months of maternity leave will begin on the birthday, and then a month of accrued vacation time will follow.

Meanwhile, I am puttering around the house.  I have fixed some sheet rock in the bathroom, caulked around the tub, did some marketing for the Boston Choral Ensemble, cooked, cleaned, and played a pile of video games in an attempt to not think about the inevitable arrival of Sam.  However, in the back of my mind...who am I kidding...and the front of my mind and all other parts of my mind, I am eagerly thinking about our new addition.  This watched pot is not boiling, though, and I don't foresee much happening in the next few days. It is almost surreal, as the pregnancy has been pretty easy on Elizabeth.  We just keep plugging along, and if not for a 9-month plus pregnant belly, neither of us would be the wiser that there is a baby ready to be here.

This ever-present thought line is not easily suppressed, either, as friends who were pregnant at the same time or after Elizabeth have already done the deed, and pictures of beautiful babies flood the Facebooks and Twitter feeds. I feel like we are ready to take this plunge, but Sam is teaching us to be patient.  I'm sure this is the first of many lessons he will have for us.

If things continue status quo, we have an appointment with the doctor on Friday to schedule a Sunday afternoon induction of labor, which would likely lead to a January 20th arrival of the little tot.  This gives us an end game to look toward, but these days are going to feel awfully long as they will be wrapped in all the anticipation and angst that new soon-to-be parents can muster. Onward, at a snail's pace!