Expecting Life

Life: you get a degree, get a job, get a family, get a good retirement plan, get a nice place in the cemetery.

Right? Isn’t that right?

Well, I suppose I got it half right. Did my time at Central High, got my four years in at the U, married a nice guy, Rick, my husband. A job? Not exactly what I wanted, but it pays the bills, it’s steady work.

But life – yeah, it’s a lot more than that. Because, see, I’m expecting now. And suddenly, everything is different.

Expecting – I don’t say pregnant, because, see, that’s a one-time word, a “this happened” word. Expecting, that describes how I feel, it’s a play-by-play, a long-term thing.

We’re excited of course. It’s not like we don’t want a child, we do. And everyone else is excited. My mother calls all the time now, and people are always asking how the baby is.

But – I’m frightened, in a way. Kids are so fragile, so – I don’t know. I look at them so differently now, that I’m going to have one. They fuss, they cry, they need so much.

I mean, what do I know about children? What have my twenty-eight years taught me about them? I’m not a genius. I’m not employee of the year. Can I really give a kid everything he needs? Or she needs? What do I know, anyway?

Sometimes, when I come home tired, kiss Rick good-bye as he goes to his night shift, I lay in bed and think “How can we even think about having a baby?”

But I want this child, too, no matter how it overwhelms me. I look at kids, and I’m afraid, but I also see how wonderful they are. They’re so cute, so innocent. I want to hold them, so tight sometimes, never let them go.

Then, there are times, even now, when I know its so small, that I think I can feel him. Not anything physical, not a kick or anything, but just this feeling that suddenly I’m more than just Heather Mills, office 107: I’m a mother. I’m responsible for this life growing inside me. Yes, it’s scary, but it’s so wonderful, I could cry.

Sorry. Hormones. Life: it’s so strange, so great. We’re trusted with something like this, I mean, being a parent, being a mother. Who knew life could be this incredible?