Every Day, One More Yard

My son has written “babey” on the calendar to mark my due date. 

My belly is full and heavy. My pelvis is in a perpetual state of numbing pressure interspersed with sharp, electric shocks that make me catch my breath. Everyone is joking about how tired I’m about to be, as if I have forgotten. As if I am not already up every hour, toddling to the bathroom, constantly roused by the need to pee. 

I am waiting to hear back about a chapbook submission. I entered a picture book manuscript in a contest that announces its finalists on March 17th. The eight-week mark for a round of agent queries I sent out (many of which state that if you don’t hear back in eight weeks, you can consider it a pass) is approaching. My inbox is silent, all the literary magazines I’ve submitted to are taking their sweet time sending replies. Everything is in a state of suspense and there is nothing to do but wait, to wrap my arms around the heaviness of expectation and try to prepare myself for the pain. 

The other night, my son awoke from a nightmare and struggled to settle again. He ended up in bed with me, complaining that his mind was too full of thoughts that refused to let him sleep. I am having the opposite problem; my mind feels empty. Like the downstairs closet I cleared out to make room for baby stuff, it is waiting to be filled. 

I sit down at my computer, or with a pen and a notebook, with the expectation that I should have something to write about this moment, some emotions to work through, or thoughts to parse about the changes that are coming, but no words come. I have nothing to say about this period of anticipation.  

I rested beside my son in the dark and rubbed his back while he rambled, slowly emptying his mind of all the thoughts that were keeping him up. He wanted to know when the baby would get here and I told him I couldn’t say for certain. He will come when he comes. We have to be patient. “I don’t like waiting,” my son replied, his words slowing and slurring as sleep finally eased back over him. Waiting can be very hard, I agreed. As my son’s breathing turned to gentle snoring, I inhaled sharply in response to a foot inside my belly stretching out and forming a hard lump beneath my skin. It pushed against my palm like a green stem through the still-cold dirt, nearly ready to break free. 

Every morning, my son places a red x on the calendar, crossing out the day that has ended, and draws a black circle on the day that is beginning. We march through the month like this, inching closer and closer to “babey.” Outside, the black tupelo we planted in the fall has begun to bud. I am excited to see how it changes the look of our yard when its leaves come in, and to watch it grow over the years to come. The daffodils are already up, their yellow trumpets sounding spring across the garden. The tulips are coming. The peonies are not far behind.

In my first pregnancy, when my son finally emerged from my body, I remember being shocked by the size of him. This is what had been inside of me? This whole person just waiting in the dark? I felt a similar way the first time I wrote an entire story draft in one sitting. Oh, that’s what has been growing all this time? 

Everything returns again, I remind myself. In due time, the season turns over and the garden bursts back to life, lush and full of offerings. You just have to be patient and let it unfold in its own time. 

The words will come eventually. 

I am counting down the days.