Detention Time . . .

For my students, not me. I'm proctoring the naughty kids right now as they write reflection essays to better understand their crimes. Although I'm on this side of the punishment, I feel at times as though I'm in some sort of cosmic game in which my insides are being poked and prodded and at any moment an alien will burst forth as in the popular 90's film. I know this pregnancy will end, and someday I will feel as if the time just flew past, but I don't exactly feel that way today.

I have a confession that I admit with a bit of unreasonable guilt. Yesterday, I just wanted the baby out--no, not really because that would mean she would be a tiny 2-pounder. But, selfishly, I wanted my body back. Just for one day. I wanted to take the belly off, placenta and all, hand it to Tim and say, "I'm going to Target." I miss Target. I think I've been twice, since the pain started at the end of December, and I'm having withdrawal.

Perhaps the frustration is intensified now that I know a possible cause, a backwards sort-of emotion, I know. We went to the perinatal specialist on Monday, and as he searched for our baby girl's head, he kept moving the ultrasound scanner lower and lower into my nether regions, saying (with his Eastern European accent) as he went, "Da baby is low, very, very low. Itz okay. She's just so low." Ah-ha. A lightbulb brightened in my mind. After seeing pictures of my cervix and my precious (yes, she's so precious despite the discomfort) Macie's head nearly rubbing against it, I realized that perhaps this is the reason for my discomfort. She's "in position," getting ready to meet mom and dad and Lolly and aunt Lindsay and Katie and fairy godmother Sarah and perhaps even Uncle Cody, who wants no part of this whole baby-mess. And she's keeping me off my feet as much as possible and aching to meet her--primarily for the utter and extreme joy I will experience at seeing her dimpled hands, bald head, creased elbows, tiny toenails, and soft cheeks and secondarily for the welcome gift of having my body back, though I'm certain it will be forever changed. I'll take it. Just listing her little baby parts reminds me that she's worth it, no matter how intense my own "cosmic game" seems any given day.