I broke down and cried for twenty minutes the other day. I am not in pain (I am achy, but not in pain), I am not miserable (other than heat, but I’m cranky about the heat in non-pregnant circumstances), but I wept. Josh wiped tears away from my face as I choked and hiccuped about how I’m sad that eventually I will not be pregnant anymore.

Isn’t that crazy? I cried because I won’t be pregnant. I cried, feeling sorrow at the different stages of life our baby will have - going to school for the first time, having his first overnight stay somewhere, going away to school or moving out on his own - and I wept.

I have been close to many people in my life - family, friends, Josh - but in my entire existence, my bond with the growing creature inside me is the most meaningful and significant relationship I think I’ve ever experienced. For these short, short ten months (yes, ten, because pregnancy math is fucked up), I’ve felt queasy because of his need for intense hormones to stimulate his growth, my blood sugar has ranged from normal to abnormal as my body struggles to provide the right amount of sugar for me and him. My bones are slowly shifting to make room for his arrival. Feeling him move inside me has been the most amazing feeling I’ve ever experienced before in my life.

How this baby has made me feel more like a woman makes me wonder how on earth I’ll ever be able to live without him inside me in a few short weeks. That emptiness I am anticipating is what makes me hold my belly, rub the top of my left side where he likes to nestle his (troublesomely breeched) head.

I am sure that once the baby is born, the new adventures and closeness our new family will share will fill some of that emptiness I’m preemptively feeling now - plus, the hormones will hopefully calm down and stop acting up. Also, I’m sure as the next few weeks creep by, I’ll be desperately wishing for someone or something to airlift this alien out of my body soon enough.

In the meanwhile, I’ll go into a corner and cry every now and again.