Last night, I had a dream. I was at a soccer game on a cloudy, cold, spring day. My son was on the field playing. My husband was somewhere in the near background. As the game played on, I smiled down at the little girl standing next to me. With her brother's blonde hair, her dada's twinkling eyes, and something in her expression that made me believe she had inherited her mother's impatience, I knew she had to be my daughter. I woke up, warm in bed, to a similar sort of day, and I smiled. I don't have a daughter—not yet. But I think, even though I'm absolutely not pregnant in the scientific sense, for the second time in my life, my mind is beginning the process of creating a life.
High school biology taught me that the gestation period of a human baby is nine months. Setting aside the fact that a normal pregnancy is also said to be forty weeks—do the math there—in my personal experience, that number is ridiculously low. I didn't recognize it the first time around, but, much like the first flutters of kicks in your tummy, it's easier to know what's happening when you've already been through it once. Some women might be able to have a child in nine months, but it takes me about three years.
First, there's the deciding stage. The place in my head where, “Yeah, maybe we'll have a baby someday…maybe,” turns into, “Of course we will.” It's the place where I start to really see the child in my head. Where he or she gets a name, even if it's not necessarily the one that will stick. It's the place where that vision starts to outweigh all my thoughts of how nice our family is now, all my fears about how adding another person to our family will change things.
I don't really know how souls are made, but in my imagination that thought ignites a spark somewhere. That commitment to make a life begins the process ever-so-much more than anything I ever learned about in biology class.
Then, there's the work, the preparation. This may be controversial, so let me start by saying that I know babies don't really need much. I know that it all works out once the baby arrives, because at that point there's not much choice. All the same, I know the logistics of being able to feed and shelter and care for a child are real, and they go better with a bit of planning. For me, saving a nest egg and buying a house before my son was born felt like as necessary a step as stopping birth control.
That's not true for everyone, of course, but I needed that. In the first few months of my son's life—when my own life felt like it had been hit by a beautiful, delightful, brilliant, seven-pound wrecking ball—those bulwarks of savings and stability, as fragile as they were, helped me feel safer in the world.
And now that I fully understand the chasm of love that opens up when your warm, gooey baby is laid on your chest for the first time, it's all even more important to me. The thought of not being about to do what's best for that little blonde girl or her brother because of my poor planning makes it hard to breathe.
But then there's the place where you just have to take the leap and get that nine month—forty week?—clock ticking. Even with all its indignities though, I think that's the easy part. Once there's a physical baby in your belly—hopefully growing strong and big and healthy—you're in the homestretch.
It's hard for me to see that part yet, much like it's hard to imagine how big your belly will grow on the day the stick turns blue. But I'm definitely feeling some early flutters.
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