This is only a test

With the holidays fast approaching and my due date looming, Zdenek and I have been contemplating the “ideal” day to have the baby (as if we have any choice in the matter). An earlier arrival might suck for the little one who has to share his/her birthday with the Christmas holiday every year; on the other hand, it would be good timing from a work perspective for both Zdenek and me. A later arrival, however, means a few more days to enjoy life without a crying baby in the room, and sometimes this seems even more attractive than the 2010 tax credit we’d earn if the delivery day comes before the year is through.

Recently, though, I’ve been leaning towards “later is better,” if only because I feel entirely unprepared to look after a baby. I know what everyone says: You’re never ready. You’ll figure it out. Instinct takes over. Once it’s your baby, it will be totally different. But still, I can’t help but feel that, despite the hours of “baby care” classes in which we’ve invested and the books I’ve sifted through, I won’t really have a clue what I’m doing.

To frame things in a perspective to which I can relate, I’ve tried to compare the first few months of baby-rearing to running a marathon: I’ve done the work to get here. I’ve read the books and followed the plan. Now we’re in taper, and I’m starting to feel antsy and achy and unprepared. I start to question whether I should have put in a just a little more effort along the way, or if there’s anything I can do between now and game day to improve my chances of a strong performance. The coaches will tell me that there’s nothing more to be done; now I just need to give it my best effort. When race day arrives, adrenaline will probably get me through the first bit of the course. By the halfway point, a small bump in the road is going to feel like scaling Mount Everest. Two-thirds of the way in, I’ll start to question whether I’m cut out for this at all, and soon after that, self-doubt and exhaustion may lead me to swear under my breath that I will never, ever do this again. And then, I’ll somehow stumble across the finish line (often leaning over to one side), too tired to contemplate the feat I’ve just accomplished. Some time later, when I’m recovered and things are back on their usual schedule, I’ll marvel at the experience and remember the thrill of it all, and the suffering will have seemed a small price to pay for such a rewarding outcome. And so I’ll decide to do it again (perhaps even seven more times!).

Over the weekend, when I mentioned my self-doubts to Zdenek, he offered a different analogy: “Don’t you remember the feeling in university when you’d walk into an exam feeling totally unprepared and like you were going to bomb it, and you ended up acing it instead?” I don’t know if Zdenek feels as confident on the inside as he’s appearing to be on the outside, but either way, I’m glad that one of us isn’t stressing too much about this. Because at some point last night, when I again became overwhelmed by the daunting task that lies ahead of me, the only things that eventually lulled me back to sleep were Zdenek’s incredible patience and his calming words (if I haven’t mentioned it enough, let me again say that my husband is the world’s greatest). This morning, as he headed off to work, exhausted both physically and mentally but not complaining one bit, I told him that he had proven himself capable of soothing someone in the middle of the night and sacrificing his own sleep to so. By his own analogy, he had aced the test. Which makes me incredibly lucky to be in his study group.
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P.S. Yes, I'm still running, and it still feels pretty darn good. I ran 6.5 miles in one shot on Saturday, but decided to stop there due to thirst (apparently dehydration brings on labor, but I try to restrict the liquids when I'm running). Here's a photo of me in my new running gear: