Moonlit Musings

I've been waking up a lot during the night lately. Of course I know it's partly because of the uncontrollable urge to urinate fifty-five times a night that comes with pregnancy, but I've mainly just been waking up in general. The past couple of weeks have consisted of me waking up on my back, with my hands placed over my belly rather tightly, as if I'm holding something there that I'm afraid I may drop. Last night I awoke in the middle of a huge thunder and lightning display while the rain pounded our house, and my hands immediately fled to my stomach - not for protection, but to protect. I just think it's kind of interesting.

I mainly use these little times at night to reflect on the "Holy Shit!"ness of my life right now. I've been reading all kinds of books on pregnancy and the day-by-day process on how much the baby is growing. I try to remember every detail in the middle of the night from what I read in the morning - the ears are low on the head, the eyes are starting to have retinas, the intestines are now moving into the body - all of these crazy things I read as my part of my morning ritual for last things to do before going to work: take the prenatal vitamin, see how the fingers and toes are coming along; take the prenatal vitamin, search for a box of matches to understand how much the baby weighs now; take the prenatal vitamin, bang BBQ tools on the window to scare away Damien. After I recount as many of the daily growth details as I can, I just lie there, wide-eyed and wondering. Wondering how I got here. Wondering how it took so long. Wondering how I got so lucky that I can barely breathe. Inevitably the snores from The World's Cutest Irishman will draw my gaze - not because he is making so much noise, but because I have to keep looking to see if he is real, and let's face it, it's usually dark in the middle of the night, making it rather difficult to see. Just as I resist the urge to prod and smoosh my belly around as if to find some tangible evidence that there really is a human being growing in there ('cause I kinda still don't believe it), I also resist the urge to poke Sean and get him to move, just to prove that he is there, moving beside me. Beside ME! Instead I just imagine whatever child-related fantasy I'm up for - first words, trick-or-treating, football games (no poopy diapers or teething in these fantasies; otherwise they'd be nightmares!) - and marvel at the fact that Snore Master of the Universe will be there for all of it. This is usually followed by a brief rush of, "Oh God, what if something ever happened to him? What if something happens in this pregnancy? I will absolutely die either way!" I look away from him, snap myself out of the melodrama, go to the bathroom again, and then get a drink of water to ensure that I will continue to be up every hour.

Sometimes it varies. Sometimes I wake up just long enough to have the, "I'M GOING TO BE A MOM!!" freak-out, and other times I'll be conscious only long enough to lament the fact that neither Sean's dad nor my dad are alive to be grandpas, in which case I immediately make myself go back to sleep before the crying starts. Daddy, I CANNOT believe you are going to miss this.

I roll over, briefly dread figuring out what I will wear later that day, strategically place my cold feet under Sean's warm legs (What? He's asleep; he doesn't know! At least, I don't think so...), yank the sleeves from Dad's old fishing t-shirt out of my armpits, pat my belly, say goodnight to my family, and temporarily drift back to sleep, rocking gently on the waves of my good fortune.