Weight and Waiting

There are two things in my own personal life that I’ve never liked: gaining weight and waiting for things. Fortunately I’ve enjoyed good health and a wealth of activity for most of my life and therefore gaining weight has never been a big problem. I enjoy the self-discipline of training for long running races and love to be outside. I’ve taken it for granted that I’ve been fit enough for the past seven or eight years to go out for a ten mile run on a Saturday without much thought. Even though my fitness since I’ve graduated from college has experienced highs and lows, the scale hasn’t fluctuated more than a few pounds.

Waiting is something that I’ve never really had much control over. I don’t enjoy waiting for Andrew to pick me up from school. I don’t like to wait for people who are running late. I don’t like to wait to give people presents at Christmas. I’m obsessed with tracking packages on the internet and when they are “out for delivery” I feel anxious.

When Andrew and I found out I was pregnant a million months ago, I knew that the entire pregnancy was going to be a challenge because it combined my two least favorite things. Forty weeks to grow a baby and as many pounds to match? How was I going to begin to survive? I don’t like waiting three minutes for milk to heat up for hot chocolate!

Surprisingly of the two parts of pregnancy I dreaded most, gaining weight has been the easiest. I will admit, the doctor’s appointment I had back in November where I’d gained eight pounds (yes EIGHT pounds) in four weeks nearly brought me to tears, but I know there is a healthy little (or perhaps he is enormous) boy growing inside of me. Now when I go in for my weekly weigh in I have to chuckle at the numbers on the scale. Never in a million years did I think I would weigh more than a friend of my husband’s or that the weight I’ve gained so far is the equivalent of our puppy. I look back at pictures from early in my pregnancy and am amused by what I once thought was a bump and where I am today.

13.5 Weeks

39 Weeks, 2 Days

Now I am at the most difficult part: waiting. Ben is due any day and I just want him to hurry up and get here. Every day I wake up and wonder…will today be the day? Every night I go to sleep a little grumpy that it hasn’t happened yet. To me, waiting for Ben to arrive is one of the hardest things I’ve ever waited for. I don’t have a countdown. I can’t check off days on the calendar. Instead I just wait and wait and wait and wait…