Denial is a River in Egypt

So.

Six weeks.

That's how much longer we've got until this theoretical "baby" becomes a reality.

I'm still having difficulty coming to terms with this idea.  We spent over a decade striving for one thing: a healthy pregnancy and a living child.  We've made it further than we've ever dreamed of -- 33 weeks pregnant with a strong, healthy, boy.  And while I've finally accepted that I am, indeed, preggers -- I still can't quite wrap my brain around the idea of an actual BABY in my house.  A person, to hold and love and play with and read to and learn from.  A living being that didn't exist before, and that I am solely responsible for.  It just doesn't seem real yet, believe it or not.

I've been burned before, that's true.  And I know our history makes it harder for me to grasp the realities that are inherent in our situation.  I am pregnant -- that much I can finally accept.  I can feel his kicks, my belly is huge, and I haven't slept in months.  However, the idea that pregnancy actually leads to a baby?  Still not quite happening in my brain.

I still keep expecting to wake up and have this all be a dream.  I imagine slipping quite easily back into my infertile, miserable, state -- that much more traumatized for having experienced everything the last eight months have brought.

And I don't know how to make it real.  I don't think I can -- not until I'm holding B.B. in my arms.

So much of pregnancy has been different than I imagined -- and yet wonderful, magical, and terrible all at once.  I'm sure that parenthood will be the same.  And though I can picture myself parenting, see Mo and I doing all those things we've dreamed of doing for so long -- it still seems but a distant, hopeful, future.

Six weeks.

No time at all.

12 years.

A lifetime.

I'm not ready.