Now

I spent a lot of the last year living in the future. I was always thinking nine months ahead: "If I get pregnant this month the baby will be due in..." It actually got me confused about the dates, and I would catch myself thinking fall was right around the corner, when we had just celebrated Christmas. Several times I tried to shake myself out of that way of thinking, tried to make myself focus on right now. On living my life, pregnant or not. Of not putting things on hold for something so uncertain.

For a few weeks I was able to concentrate very much on the present. All I could think of was the fact that at last I was pregnant and hope that the pregnancy would last just another day; of what I could eat that wouldn't make me sick; of when I could get in another nap.

Now that we're a little more confident, more convinced that ClearBlue Easy wasn't lying when it flashed the word "pregnant" on the screen, I'm back to living in the future, forgetting to concentrate on now. I am so excited to meet this baby that I forget to appreciate this time right now. This last time of just Brian and me, just ourselves together. This time with my body going through amazing changes.

A few weeks ago I woke up in the night to a spectacular thunderstorm, with one roll of thunder beginning before the previous had ended and bolts of lightning flashing across the sky. At first I lay there thinking about the baby and what our lives would be like during next summer's thunderstorms. And then I sat up in bed, watching the trees thrash outside, throwing rain against the window, and I thought about how just a few hours before I had heard the baby's heartbeat at my prenatal appointment for the very first time. I realized that I didn't have to wait until this winter for him to be real. He already is.