Nobody told me there could be love like this.

Right after my mom got her terminal diagnosis, she immediately made one request of me:

She said, "Promise me you'll have children. You won't regret it."

Well, at the time I would have said anything to her; she had just found out she was dying. I didn't know if I'd be able to keep my promise to have children, but I would certainly try.

I understand now why she wanted so badly for me to have this. Josh has changed my life. I was never prepared for loving someone this much. It makes me ache, even. He's perfect and charming, and even if he weren't, I'd love him this much anyway. He was 3 weeks old as of yesterday.

Three weeks! That's such a short time. But I can't remember my life before him, and I don't want to. He's absolutely the best thing that's ever happened to me, even when he's been nursing for the whole day and I haven't had a chance to eat or take a shower or anything. When he's sleeping, I sometimes want him to wake up just so we can cuddle some more. When he cries, I get all squirrely until I can comfort him.

I can stare at him, literally, for hours. He looks nothing like me, and I sometimes wonder if he really did grow inside my body. But even if he came from another planet, I'd still be this taken with him.

I've been grateful for a lot of things in my life, but I have never been as grateful as I am right now, for a baby I didn't plan on having, and at one point, thought had ruined my life. Life sure is full of surprises.

Announcing...

The arrival of Joshua!

November 6, 2005
8:38 p.m.
8lbs, 4 oz
21.5 inches long

Safe, healthy, perfect.


Motherhood: Trial by fire.

Hear that?

It's the sound of my howling sobs.


No. NO NO NO no no NO No No NO NO NO no no NO NO NO!

HE IS STILL NOT HERE.


I really do suspect that I'll be pregnant forever. I'm trying to learn how to be okay with it, and also, how to further stretch the skin of my abdomen so as to prevent tearing and spilling my stomach contents all over the apartment.

My friend is arriving from BC tomorrow (Gina, come with her!) and hopefully that will be all the incentive my little tummy friend needs to make his brave journey down the birth canal. If he fails to acknowledge how supremely wonderful it is that Marilyn is willing to fly across the country to meet him as he enters the world, I will be induced on Saturday night. In the hospital. I'm trying to be okay with that, too.

I went to Connor's birthday party on Sunday and hoped that celebrating that baby's life would kick my own womb into high-gear. Instead, all that happened was I woke up Monday with a cold. A cold! I work at a bloody community centre with its own daycare. I have been around sick elderly folks and sick babies and germy ankle-biting toddlers the whole way through my pregnancy and not once have I picked anything up that made me sick. So it's only Murphy's Law that I should find myself flattened out with a sore-throat-and-sneezy-congestion just as I'm down to the wire on delivering a child. Oh, Universe. You are so funny indeed.


Oh look at the time. I'm just about due for the next session of banging my head against the wall. Gotta run. Kisses, all! XO.