Wednesday, July 22, 2009

It shouldn't be a surprise

Suzi in June 2007, just a few days old

You dream of a baby, you try for a baby, you get pregnant with a baby. Then you spend nine months reading and kegeling and buying teeny little clothes to prepare. There is even an ultrasound picture of the baby with cute little feet and hands to prove she is in there. Why, then, is it a surprise when you go into labor and it results in a child? Really!

Two years ago, I was just shocked to see Suzi for the first time. Although I knew I wasn't just getting fat, that there was a baby in there, it wasn't like I expected to see this little black-haired girl gazing up at me at the end of it all. Maybe it was because I had envisioned a blondie with blue eyes (like Jordan) and she wasn't one. Maybe it was because I really wasn't used to seeing newborn babies.

But last night Jordan and I were sitting at the movies together and my mind flashed involuntarily to the image of a fuzzy-headed black-haired baby. I thought, "wow--that could be Ivey!" I don't know what she'll look like. Even though she's been taking up residence in my belly for nine months and we've been closer than close, I don't know what to expect. I tried to explain this terrifying and exhilarating phenomenon to Jordan on the way home but he didn't get it.

Why is it so impossible to look down at my basketball belly and translate the feet and butt scraping by to a sweet tiny girl in a pink blanket that fits right in the crook of my arm?

I guess it's just too miraculous to imagine.

3 comments:

Emily said...

Jenny, I totallllyyyy relate. I still don't think it's really hit me that the end result of this is a baby. A living-breathing-human-honest-to-goodness-baby. It does seem funny that we've been feeling these little ones move for months now, and seen their shapes on the ultrasound, but it still doesn't feel REAL.

I don't think it will until I'm holding mine :-)

Anonymous said...

I totally understand. Even now, with my two kids and how many months or years later, I sort of can't comprehend it. I remember being pregnant and delivering them, but it almost doesn't seem real even in retrospect.

It's just too amazing and incredible to totally understand, I think.

Lauren Wayne said...

I'm with you on this! We didn't even know whether Mikko would be a boy or girl, so it was all surprise and so surreal to look down and realize, "So that's what you look like." And Mikko in particular looked nothing like me at birth, so much so that I couldn't quite believe he was mine. He looked totally liked my husband's side of the family, so I knew he was Sam's, but...well, it was illogical since I had just pushed the kid out, but there you go!

The newborn thing is funny, too, because I wasn't sure what features were permanent and what was just from being scrunched up and wet for so long. Mikko had this Neanderthal brow that I was really concerned about. Funny in retrospect, now that it's (happily) gone! :)

Enjoy meeting your sweet new baby!