Cherish

It's really hard not to wish a pregnancy away.

During the first trimester, you're so consumed by the anxiety associated with potential miscarriage, or with the sickness that takes over your body, that you will the days away. You wish you could go to sleep and suddenly wake up at 13 weeks, when your chances of a healthy pregnancy are significantly increased, and your stomach gradually settles again.

In the second trimester, you can't wait to look pregnant. You can't wait to feel your child kick, flip, and roll inside of you. You can't wait for the ultrasound that will reveal (if you choose) whether you're having a son or a daughter. You look forward to 20 weeks because you're halfway there; then you long for week 24, which marks viability.

Finally, when you're in your third trimester, you count down the weeks and days until your due date, unable to contain the excitement you feel about meeting your baby. You can't wait to see his or her face, to determine whether he has your nose, or if she has your husband's eyes. You ache to kiss his tiny ear; you long to count her fingers and toes. You spend time standing in the nursery you've prepared, running your fingertips over the small diapers and socks, just waiting for the day they'll belong to a baby. Your baby.

It is only when you step back and take a moment to breathe that you realize just how precious these months are. When it is over, you will never again carry your baby this closely to you. You will no longer feel every kick, every hiccup, every stretch. You won't have your baby with you every hour, every minute, every second of every day.

And life, it is about to change. We will never again have the level of freedom to do what we want to do--with ourselves, with our time, with our money--as we do right now. (Or, we will... someday. But not for a very long time.) In a handful of weeks, it will no longer be just the two of us and our pup. There will be someone else here, a little someone who will dictate how things run around here.

When I think of meeting this baby, I am overwhelmed with excitement. But when I think of how things will change forever, I'll admit to being somewhat scared. I feel such conflict over wanting to get to "three" so quickly while also wanting to so deeply cherish every minute that we have left as "two." And perhaps a baby takes nine months to get here just to teach us that lesson. To learn patience in the face of anticipation, and to treasure the moments that we will never have again.

This pregnancy thing? It is beautiful.

We should not wish it away.

I'm really trying not to.