Should Have Seen This Coming

Newbies

In the last week or so, a very terrifying fact has finally permeated my foggy, exhausted brain.

I've been in a near panic, vacillating between downright terror and utter despondency with brief explosions of excitement in between.

DD- two days old and exploring the world around her

I'm about to have a freakin' baby.

In less than a week, this baby will be the same developmental age that SI and DD were when they were born.  Tiny, but perfect.  With perfectly functional little lungs, with all their fingers and toes...

Tiny, but ready to be in the world.

Less than a week before Baby X is where they were.

I've been getting the feeling that she's getting ready.  I feel her practicing breathing- her back rising and falling rhythmically inside of my torso for thirty seconds or so at a go.  And it feels seriously weird.  But reassuring.  And scary.  Because if she's ready to breathe, she doesn't really *need* to stay in there and get all cute and chubby, does she?  It's best- no doubt- but I don't need to worry about an early arrival hurting her.

My baby girls

I am NOT READY.  Not even close.

I have a nursery with fresh paint in it, but nothing else.

I have a heap of fabric and foam to turn into curtains and a crib bumper.  I have a lamp with no shade.

I have boxes and boxes of baby things that I haven't even opened from when the girls were newborns.  I have absolutely no clue *what* I have.

I haven't packed a bag.  I haven't even made a list.

I haven't even opened my big ol' box of nursing supplies.

I have, however, started to see that I might be in trouble.

Taking our family home from the hospital

What am I going to do when I'm needed by the girls in the morning, to get them dressed and cleaned up for the day, and I've also got a newborn?

What am I going to do when I just want to hold my toddlers on my lap and play with their curls?  Where does a nursing infant fit into that?

What am I going to do when they follow me around the house, asking me to just come and play, while I change a diaper every two hours (or less), or run the ENDLESS laundry that two toddlers and an infant will no doubt create, or try to gently rock Baby X to sleep?

I just. don't. know.

I don't know how this is going to work.

I'm trying to cherish the time I have with my kids before the new one gets here.  But I don't have time.  I have so much to do for the new baby.

One week from today, this is how old Baby X will be

And I have so much anxiety, and fear, and trepidation.

But I'm also excited.  Because I love this baby.  And while I know they don't exactly understand that the baby is real, and is really going to come and live in our house, SI and DD like to tell me that they love the baby, and that hey're going to take care of the baby.  And I know that as much as they can do the latter, they will.  And I have no doubt that they WILL love the baby.  Their baby sister.

"I love you Baby Sisstoo!" they say to my tummy.  And I panic.  Because there is a freakin' BABY in there. Not a fetus, not an abstract idea.  A baby.

I living, practicing-breathing, itsy bitsy human.

SI and DD- friends from the start

Perhaps the most terrifying creature known to man.

...waiting for just the right moment to strike.

I am not ready.  I will probably never be ready.  I must be ready.  Because there is no stopping what is going to happen from happening.

There is no getting around the fact that this baby likes to be up at night.  Or that that this baby has needs that only the adults responsible for her can meet.  Or that this baby is going to be on her way out of my body and into my home soon.

We are going to be a family of five.

And I am scared out of my freakin' mind.