Breastfeeding and snuggled late nights. Swaddling and pacifiers. First smiles and first giggles. Everything is new and everything is old because this is the way it all begins, right? And when it’s all over there’s the cap and the gown and say goodbye and then “Hello, meet your new son in law”…
And it begins again.
We sit at the kitchen table as we review her birth plan. She and I have teamed up to assist her sister in doing this twice, birthing. We joked with her husband that we work as a team, she and I.
But this time it is so different. This time she will be doing the birthing. She will be doing the breathing and feeling and contracting.
My baby girl will become a mother tomorrow. Scheduled induction, they said. It is necessary, to prevent further risk with her blood pressure running so high these past months.
Tomorrow.
The planning and the swelling and the nesting and suddenly the time is here and she’s asking ME, “What am I forgetting?” as she goes through her hospital bag for the fourth time today.
Nothing honey. Nothing that matters. Your birth plan and some clothes to go home in are all that are truly needed. God has given you everything else.
Maddening preparations come to a screeching halt when it’s the night before you become a mother and there is sleep to be had. Hopefully.
Beautiful.
Thank you. 🙂