The countdown is down to days...40 of 'em (ah!)

40 days.

It seems like a significant number, like our own version of Lent or something. 40 little days left of both waiting and not waiting. Of counting down looking forward and of trying to throw on the brakes for this last little bit of time before everything in life changes. It's wild to try to wrap my head around what a significant event awaits us in both the birth of this child and our arrival as a family. I feel a wide mixture of feelings that run the gamut from fear to bliss and everything in between. Sometimes I feel like it is still forever away, the way it felt like Christmas would never come when you were a kid; that sense of all-encompassing anticipation that grips you day and night while you wait and count the sleeps til the event. In other ways I find myself suddenly gripped with a certain trepidation, an "I'm not quite ready" sort of reckoning, like the exam that creeps toward you and you never feel quite ready for, no matter how much you've studied.

And believe me, I've been studying. I've never read so many books on one subject in my life (although, this is arguably the most significant event I've encountered about which I technically know nothing) - 'Spiritual Midwifery', 'Birthing from Within', 'The New Active Birth', 'The Water Birth Book', 'Hypnobirthing', 'Best Evidence', 'Misconceptions' - you name it, I've read it. I feel as prepared and informed as anyone could be and yet I feel at the same time wholly unprepared, as though every word I have poured into my brain has leaked out somewhere else and when I need it it will be nowhere to be found. And of course, outside influences continue to roll in, everyone has an opinion on my birth. The concensus seems to be that I should just have an epidural and be done with it, and everyone seems to feel quite comfortable in telling me this. It's hard to keep up my resolve against what sometimes feels like a tidal wave of contrary opinions, but I keep holding onto my firm belief that this can and will be a beautiful, powerful and empowering event that will test every fibre of my being - and one in which I know I can succeed with the love and support of those around me, of Ez and of my midwives. I feel that I possess a deep well of power that I can access and with it and through it I will meet my child. It is an awesome prospect, an awesome task and an amazing opportunity to see what it is I am made of.

Today as I was walking along (er, waddling really) I could feel a great pressure in my pelvis, the hard round shell of my belly tightening beneath my palm and like a neon sign it flashed in my brain: 'My body is preparing to birth this baby' - and I almost started to cry in the parking lot. "I'm not ready! I'm not ready!" all my fears bubbling to the surface, yet held afloat too by the wonderful promise of finally meeting this little soul who is destined to me mine, a child we made who only I could grow and only I can birth.

I bought a little bracelet today that I had seen in a shop some time ago and kept thinking of - each link a delicately scripted word: dream, laugh, enjoy, peace, hope, joy - each link a small reminder to me of what I need to see me through these last weeks and onward into motherhood. I run my fingers across each word and try to absorb them through my skin.