How do you describe this feeling?

I know it's old hat for so many people. I see them, I hear them, I know them - people with older kids, people with several kids - and I know someday all this will be some distant memory and the excitement will be lost in the depths of time but right now I cannot help but feel a myriad of emotions about what is going to happen in the next few weeks. I am somehow astonished to find myself nearly at the end of my pregnancy. I am already starting to have little twinges of sadness, a sort of mourning of the loss of this intimate time with my first child, this time of being special and doted upon by friends, family and strangers alike. This time of not yet really knowing what a wondrous and incredible experience truly awaits, the time before you, baby, whoever you are.

I feel in a certain kind of limbo, neither here nor there, neither mother nor carefree single, scared but excited, waiting and not waiting. An unavoidable reality is settling in upon us and every day we look at each other with faces stunned and smiling and we marvel that soon we will meet you and we can't believe it still. How I feel about labour and delivery, about the choice of a home birth, a water birth, about life in general, about my ability to mother, to balance, about career and marriage and every little thing in between hangs in this odd balance between here and you. You. You're here, everyday, and yet not and I know that once you arrive we will hardly recall what we did before you. I dream of you every night, sometimes good things - your face, outlined somehow against the taut skin of my belly, your tiny fingers and feet poking through - sometimes scary things, like watching your swaddled yellow body roll off the edge of the bed, your tiny face awash in disbelief and betrayal. I sometimes find myself asking if I will know what to do, if I'm ready for all this and even in doubt I know it's true that I am. I feel like I am about to run the biggest, most exciting and scary river I have ever run and it feels great and daunting all at once.

I feel still remarkably wonderful for the most part, a bit uncomfortable at times, a bit full and awkward waddling around in my ill-fitting clothes in their small rotation. I feel bigger every single day and wonder how that can be. I saw a couple the other day in a store with a small, small little pink girl in the father's arms - 2 months old and so tiny! I wondered how you could possibly be any tinier than that but I know you will be. I think aside from your eyes, the eyes I cannot wait to catch and hold with my own, I think of your foot, your tiny pebble toes and how I will kiss each one in turn and make a wish upon it that you will always love me like I love you. I know someday you will grow up and become you own person and you won't need me or perhaps even like me, but for now, I know that you do and I will hold onto that with every breath and every fibre of my being and no matter what, this will be our time for wonder.

I admit I feel scared, there is so much unknown, it's like a canyon that you must run without scouting and that is a scary proposition indeed. But I am buoyed by the love and support of Ez - he's so selflessly doting and will be wonderful throughout all of this, I know - and by that of my friends and family. Whenever I look down and see these red cords about my wrists or see them on a friend, I know that someone else is thinking of us. I sat last night with the ever growing string of beads and it was like a prayer to slide my fingers across the surface of each one and say the name of the person who sent it to us and I gained energy and strength and felt the love with which they were given.