Due Date

Today would have marked 40 weeks if you were still inside my body. Instead it marks two and a half weeks, the amount of time you have been out in the world as an autonomous being.

You do not yet entirely understand that you are an autonomous being. We had the doula come back to help us get you to sleep in your bassinet, and I discovered that I cannot stand having you sleep in the next room without me. It was the worst night of sleep I've had since the hospital. An annoying way to spend $500.

I have historically considered myself to be a pretty cerebral person, and so it has been a surprise to discover that I am an animal. But there is no way to do this without being an animal. There is blood and sweat and smells and milk, and you and I smell like each other. I have put a sweaty t-shirt of mine into your bassinet, under the fitted sheet, to help you feel at home there. In the night I hear your every gurgle and sneeze, and I open my eyes and see that all is well, and that makes it okay for me to go back to sleep. Sometimes I have to touch you. Like a mother elephant softly draping her trunk along the neck of her calf, just to check and make sure he's still really there.

You are asleep on my chest right now, on the couch in the den of the apartment, while your Oma walks the dog and your father listens in on a faculty meeting over the phone and pads around the house.

I love this new animal life we are leading together.