Written on April 20, 2014

Written on April 20, 2014

As of tonight we will have known for exactly one week. As of 9 p.m. Yet that week feels like one enormous year. Before last Sunday we were just buzzing on with life and plans and travel and appointments and weddings and work and grocery shopping. Knowing for a week. And being unable to share the news.

Baby registry is in full force and according to Amazon, it's nearly 100 percent complete. Go me! Still unisex items for now, but the damn cutest unisex items. When she comes and when she's a she and when she's ours it will be all princess and teddy bears and pink and purple. But for now, in birth mother's womb, unisex.

I'm supposed to leave for Florida on Thursday for Lauri's bachelorette weekend. I have so many projects at work I need to finish. So many loose ends. So many wedding-travel arrangements to make, yet we can't make any yet. No extra hotel rooms, no phone calls, no emails. Nobody knows what we're going through.

It's really taking a toll on me physically but I'm trying to tell myself this is only temporary.

The baby registry feels unreal. Like, there's a baby coming? Here? Soon?

I've had all of one week to accept the fact, really accept it, that I'm going to be a mom. No 40 weeks of preparing myself for the "it's-not-all-about-me-anymore" thing. No 9 months.

One week. Yet we're still counting. Will I make it to Florida? Will we be in the hospital tomorrow? Will she carry full term? Will she be induced? Will it be a girl? Will she really be ours?

Adoption, you are one tough cookie.

Marjie and Sean, you are one tough team.

I'm jittery. Stomach pains. Can't sleep. Can't concentrate. But I'm still moving. There's no other choice.

There's so much guilt around the last-minute work thing. Most moms prepare their employers for maternity leave. Mine didn't get any. And I feel terrible. It eats at me. I gave them as much information as I had and have, in the time and way I found out myself. I have that guilt that all of this last-minute planning puts a strain on our families. All of this stuff, stuff "regular" moms have months to prepare for and sort through, we have none. Pediatricians and child care and budget.

There's this baby, inside of another woman, and we are waiting on the edge of our seats for it to arrive. The weirdest feeling in the world.

Choppy, scary.

So much excitement and joy mixed in with so many unknowns.

For survival: we are one tough team.

All of the choppy and scary and unpreparedness aside, there's a baby and she needs us.

That's where we come in.

This "one tough team" I keep mentioning? We'll work it out. Not sure how, but life is funny sometimes and life is scary sometimes and sometimes, just sometimes, I have to put all of my anxieties aside and let go and let G-d.

My all-time favorite quote, well, one of them: "It is what it is."

For someone who's had her world shaken so many times, that phrase is hard. Yet I continue to use it. It's the only sense of peace for me right now. There's this plan. G-d knows it, and I have a feeling he's smiling. He's been smiling the who way through.

It is what it is.

It is what it is.

Love.

Ending today's post with the one word that trumps all the other words. Love. We have it everywhere and we are ready to give it.

That's one thing the heart is always sure of: love.

Dear potential future daughter: we love you and we are ready for you. And we love you. We love you.