I pass by the baby’s room several times a day (and night on the way to the bathroom) and involuntarily glance in each time I do. Everything in there looks expectant. The crib seems to glance up at me hopefully to see if I’m stopping in to introduce its occupant. The glider leans forward in anticipation, only to settle back and kick up on its own ottoman. The changing pad calls attention to the ointments and wipes and diapers in a reporting-for-duty (heh. “duty”.) kind of way. The toys and animals peer down with expressions of excited readiness. We wonder if they’ll break out in applause when we finally bring the baby home.

Meanwhile, we wait.

Topher has started carrying his phone at all times, just in case. I sent directions to the hospital to my parents. Friends and family email and call to check in daily. The doctor reminds me that first babies often come late.

We’re continuously asked if we’re “ready”, which seems like a silly question to me. Is anyone ever ready for parenthood. Maybe they think they are, but what do they know, really? We’re prepared with equipment, clothes, books (a.k.a. instruction manuals), but I think the moose on the toy shelf feels readier than we do.

While we count down the days to the estimated due date (March 5), people increasingly weigh in with what they think we’re having. The cashier at the grocery store this week informed me that she knows I’m having a boy. A good friend is certain it’s a girl. My OB said,“I can’t wait to find out what it is!”

We’re all wondering and waiting, so a poll seems like a good way to pass the time now.
Register your best guess via the comments section below. Include: birth date, sex, and weight. I’ll send the winner(s) an edible item in the mail…eventually.

I tried on my wedding dress 10 times before I bought it. Topher and I looked at 35 apartments before deciding on our first.  While we were shopping for baby furniture, a friend sarcastically asked if we’d been to every store up and down the Eastern seaboard.  We tend to deliberate, weighing all of our options over and over before deciding.  It’s a trait as individuals and as a couple that we willingly own up to.

The thing is, when we finally make a decision, it’s typically a solid one.  I loved my wedding dress (and still do, in hindsight).  We lived in our Pine Street apartment for five years and only left it to buy our house.  And the baby furniture is cozy and just right.

In the face of one of the biggest decisions we’ve had to make–choosing a name for someone–we took advantage of all nine months to consider, eliminate, add, subtract, mix and finally match.

At week 39, we’re near certain we have a name (first and middle) for either a boy or a girl.

Picking a name wasn’t easy, but it was much more gut-driven than I anticipated.  The pages of our baby names books aren’t nearly as tattered as I thought they’d be. We scratched names that we both liked off the list because they were already accounted for in our families.  Others got the bump because one of us associated it with someone we knew in the span of our lives who made us dislike the name for being a dislikable person. Our list of silly and often ridiculous names was longer than the list under serious consideration.

We haven’t kicked options around with family or friends, figuring it’s best to shield ourselves from the reactions, opinions and baggage a slew of other people would bring to the table.  Ultimately, we’re going with the names that feel right to us and we’re trusting that our decision-making strategy will serve us as well for the name of our child as it has for other big choices in life.

Besides, everybody will love the name Brunhildegard Batilda Desmond or Englebert Rumple Desmond.

Just kidding. (Apologies to anyone considering those. See? That’s why you don’t ask for other people’s input!)

(Pictured: August 31, 2009 and February 10. 2010)

“Take a picture guys, because this is it! Now we’re just waiting to have a birthday party,” my OB said to us at our 37-week appointment on Monday.

At 37 weeks, pregnant women are classified “full term” (also known as “ready to pop”, “could go any second”, or “any day now”), which means that developmentally, the baby should be prepared for arrival, even three weeks before the estimated due date.

I’m just not sure how we got here so fast.  I feel like I was standing in Aisle 6A yesterday, and that the experience of the anatomy ultrasound was just a moment ago.  I can recall family and friends’ reactions to the news as if we just hung up the phone with them.  And though I’ve come such a long way emotionally and mentally, I can still vividly feel the honesty in my response to the test on July 2, 2009.

Now things are pretty quiet, save for the crinkling of overindulgent packaging and bubble wrap that Babies R Us insists on for shipping even foam toys through the mail.  Work deadlines have been met.  I squeezed in one last trip to New York City for a conference last Saturday.  Topher finished crown molding, painting, shelf-hanging, gear assembling and furniture moving, culminating in a nursery that cheerfully whispers “welcome home”.

I’m so excited to meet this little person, but no part of me is wishing for the end to come quickly.  A guy at the gym yesterday asked if I had about two months left. He hasn’t seen the way Topher has to pull me out of bed in the morning so I don’t have to get a rolling start by myself.  When I corrected him with “two weeks,” I felt the disbelief, and maybe a little desperation in my own voice.  I could still use the predicted remaining time and I am certain that I’ll miss the expectation when pregnancy is over.

It goes so fast.

I have a feeling that’s just the first of many years of saying the same thing about plenty of what’s to come.

I used to be sure that when the ninth month of pregnancy hit, I’d have my hospital bag packed and I’d be waiting by the door until the action started.  Now, here I am in my ninth month, two weeks to the estimated due date, and I haven’t packed a thing.  The only items that are vaguely set aside are a bag of Twizzlers (dwindling daily), some lollipops and a Vanilla Bean GU, which we have leftover from marathon season and which I’ve heard is good for sustaining some energy in the thick of labor.

I sense I might be unprepared.

We tend to pack light (we crammed all our stuff into one suitcase for our honeymoon and haven’t checked a bag for a flight in recent memory), so overdoing it isn’t so much a concern. We could use some suggestions though, for both of us (men, what does Toph need: a helmet and a cup, just in case?) lest we just show up like we’re going in for a routine visit.

Please weigh in via the comments below.

On the first Tuesday evening in January, just as the calendar flipped to The Year of the Baby, Toph and I met on the couch at 8 p.m. for the season premier of The Biggest Loser (there, I said it, we’re watchers). We were probably situated in our ritualistic way for the show, doing something ironic like eating Ben and Jerry’s right out of the container. The whole scene, programming included, was familiar and mindless and predictable.

Then, in the middle of one of Jillian’s irritatingly prying personal explorations with a contestant (which prompt both of us to groan every episode, “Why do we watch this?”), Toph turned to me with wide, revelatory eyes and said, “before the end of this season, it won’t just be the two of us sitting here watching!” (Save it folks: I know we probably won’t see the end of the season because we’ll be so sleep deprived and distracted by dirty diapers that we’ll forget it’s Tuesday and the DVR will fill up too fast to record them all. And yeah, we know, watching TV is bad for babies.)

Flash forwards like these have been happening since July 2, 2009, stopping us in our tracks when we’re doing something ordinary and forcing upon us the reality that our world is about to become almost unrecognizable.

We’ve been The Two of Us since 1997, married since 2004. It’s hard to imagine it any other way. It almost seems pointless to try since the scenes we come up with are entirely speculative.  Instead I’ve been focused on taking in these times of just Toph and Tara.

There are, though, two scenes I can’t stop picturing: when we walk out our front door, just the two of us, on the way to the hospital, and we walk through the front door a few days later, the two of us and our son or daughter.

Someone said I won’t be thinking of anything (but pain) as we leave for the hospital, but I’m acquainted with myself enough to know that even mid-contraction, I’ll be moved to take one last nostalgic look around at the surroundings of life as we’ve known them before we lock the door to the past behind us.

Before The Two of Us turns into The Three of Us.

Preparing for a baby forces an inventory of necessities, equipment, and paraphernalia, evaluating financial means and determining career logistics. But it also nudges you to take stock of immaterial aspects of life for an important perspective on what it means to “have” or to be “ready”.

At the end of January, Toph and I threw a co-ed baby shower at our house to celebrate the approaching arrival of our first child with close friends in Philadelphia.  Our little row home filled up with 30 people bearing gifts for our new addition.  More than half our guests had to get baby sitters to be able to swing the night out, which is no small expense these days (I can’t believe people used to hire me at age 13 to watch multiple kids under age 2 for $2 an hour), plus it snowed unexpectedly. They all made it.

Topher and I have known the majority of these friends now almost longer than we didn’t know them.  Most were classmates at Villanova with whom we’ve remained tightly connected, despite the odds against relationships that get joggled loose by time, distance and whatever life doles out.  The group has grown as marriages invited new members who quickly became an integral part of the scene.  It’s been surreal to watch kids of these friends meet each other, without a hunch about the history their parents already share.

Since July 2, 2009, so many of our friends–the ones who were there that night for the shower, and countless others who weren’t–have helped us stockpile and prepare with gear, guidance, encouragement and reassurance.  But over the years, they’ve equipped us with far more.  They’ve been part of our biography and have helped adjust and set a shared moral compass on which we’ll calibrate our child’s until he or she can operate on his or her own.  They’ve helped define us. They’ve been cheerleaders when the rest of the world seemed comprised of naysayers. They swore we could do something big when we were certain we couldn’t.  They reminded us that work is only a small part of a bigger, richer life when we got caught up into thinking it’s the only thing that defines us. They made us laugh when we’ve only felt like crying.

When you’re looking out on a houseful of good friends, all gathered at once, you’re reminded of what you don’t think of on any given day when life is just moving along as usual: these people have given us faith in the good of the world, which is encouraging enough to want to add to its population.

And then you hope that your children find themselves surrounded by as good a group of friends someday.

I’d heard about nesting before pregnancy became part of my life.  It’s loosely defined as an expectant mother’s intense urge to prepare and organize before the birth of a baby. Supposedly pregnant female animals also exhibit nesting behaviors.  The instinct, which is said to be prompted by both biological and emotional cues, is explained as a survival mechanism in some way: if everything is in order when baby arrives, the shipshape environment will give him or her the best shot at healthy growth and survival.

I’m fascinated by the commonality and consistency of the urges described. Women confess hanging out of windows to clean the outside panes, frantically scrubbing toilets and floors, flipping out on husbands to finish home improvements, obsessively laundering and compulsively cleaning. I’ve wondered if and how it would manifest in me (I am not a passionate housecleaner under normal circumstances).

I was browsing a series of comments by moms-to-be on a BabyCenter.com community board and it was flush with matching stories about missions of cleanliness.  In the past month, I have done more laundry than maybe ever in my life, and the thought of putting Baby in a dirty tub gives me the heebeejeebees, and I’m surprised that all the tiny clothes we have are washed and neatly folded in the dresser already.  The surest sign of nesting for me, though, has been all the activity in the kitchen.

About a month or so, I went on a freezer cleaning tear, emptying it of content that started to look the way our car does outside in the midst of today’s blizzard: covered with frost and useless.  I threw out recipe development remnants and lingering, almost-empty ice cream cartons.  I thawed stock and put it to use, added soup to the dinner menu to eat what had been suspended in time from a bigger batch cooked weeks earlier.  I cleaned out storage containers that we’d been looking for and got ready to fill them all up again.

My nesting instinct has materialized into a stockpile of frozen prepared food for the initial weeks of newborn exhaustion when I can’t quite make it to the kitchen to cook.  Reserves of homemade food may help us feel remotely sane or exhibit some semblance of normal as we struggle through sleep deprivation and the inevitable bewilderment of early parenthood.

The current inventory includes: several quarts of chicken stock and turkey stock, pulled pork, smoked turkey and black beans, flank steak, chicken, pasta sauce, chili, vegetable curry, vegetable stew, a sliced Italian boule, pasta fagiole, butternut squash-apple soup and cauliflower soup from a friend, a few pounds of cooked dried black and white beans, and chocolate chip cookie dough.

I’ll keep cooking and stashing as long as I can stand being in the kitchen (though a few weeks ago I was at the stove, belly facing a simmering pot and Toph exclaimed, “Don’t burn the baby!”). Hopefully I’ll have the capacity and energy to thaw what’s cooked when the time comes.

We just finished a childbirth class with about 12 other couples at Pennsylvania Hospital, where we’ll have the baby next month.  The instructor started with introductions and asked us to share a word or phrase that comes to mind when we think about childbirth.  As expected, the answers were quite varied, ranging from “joy” to “fear”.  All of them were thoughtful, honest and valid.

One participant said he considered the word “ordeal” appropriate for childbirth.  Someone else equated it to a marathon, in that it’s a long drawn out process that sends mind and body on an unpredictable course.  Tears, anxiety, and excitement were words in the mix as well.

My answer was “the great unknown”. For all the books and articles I’ve read on the topic, or stories I’ve heard from friends and family, none can conjecture to say how a particular birth will go.  There is only hindsight, no precognition.

We can plan routes to the hospital, build an email distribution for sharing the news, pack a bag, pick an old t-shirt to wear, visualize relaxation techniques, practice massage, build a playlist, imagine how to pass the hours of the first phase of labor at home, bounce on a birthing ball, but the details of the day, the way it’ll all unfold and the manner in which each individual baby comes into this world is completely unpredictable.  All you can do is hope for the best.

The last response was my favorite: “blessing”.  Isn’t that the truth?  No matter which way a new person shows up–with an epidural or without, via c-section, in a birthing tub, inside a fire truck, on the side of the road, amidst a wash of blood, sweat and tears–his or her arrival is a blessing indeed.

I read that 8 out of 10 people find out the sex of their baby before its birth. Though I was surprised by that statistic (really, that many?), I understand why people are eager to know as soon as the opportunity presents itself at the anatomy ultrasound. First, there’s the obvious logistical appeal: once you know if it’s a boy or a girl you can proceed with wall painting, pattern picking, or name searching made 50% easier when flipping through a book called “10,000 Baby Names”. Some people feel like they are lugging around a stranger in their bellies if they don’t know. After the sex is revealed, they can picture the baby better, imagine being parents of a son or a daughter, or even start calling Baby by his or her given name way ahead of its birthday debut.

I get all this and appreciate it. But Toph and I have really enjoyed being in the dark for these 36 weeks. It feels a little like a right of passage, having to wait and wonder. It’s the closest I’ve felt to the anticipation of Christmas morning since I was a kid.

We most commonly address the baby simply as “Baby”, though every once in a while we’ll try out a name we like or we’ll just call the baby an amalgamation of several of the names we like—boy and girl—at once. It’s a little like he or she has the upper hand, and is giggling at us out here trying to figure out which pronoun to use when talking about him/her (see?).

For me, there’s also the consideration of reserving the big reveal as sort of a carrot at the end of the long stick of labor. In the moment(s) of defeat, there will still be that huge, exciting, precious unknown sparkling hopefully ahead. Gotta get there. Want to get there. What else in life is as satisfying or exhilarating as that particular moment when you learn, “It’s a _____ !”?

The truth is, as we near the end of this extended eve of parenthood, the gentle daily tug-of-war between patience and pressing curiosity is one of the many, many things I’ll miss when it’s over and the big secret has been revealed.

It started very early on, well before any actual showing. Things stopped fitting like they normally do. Waistlines became snug and bras suggested that I might want to step it up a size. At around week 14 or so, I tapped into an Old Navy end of season sale and bought three of the same skirt in different colors because it was loose and airy and had a comfy elastic waist band.

This metamorphosis continued rapidly and I’ve felt like Violet Beauregarde turning into a giant blueberry in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Once the belly became visually apparent, clothes got even trickier.

A few months ago, I finally gave in to the need for an upgrade in the bra department and took to a proper undergarment store where I figured I’d get some good guidance from women who know about these things. I was only ushered to the dressing room and told to try on til I found what fit. Super. Thanks for the help.

I was getting dressed recently, looking all over the place for one of the purchased maternity/nursing bras, which I’d not put back in a drawer, but instead had probably strewn somewhere in an urgent bedtime plunge.

“What are you looking for,” Toph asked.

“I can’t find my bra,” I replied.

“How can you lose that thing?” he asked.

Its true. It’s huge.

When the winter weather descended on us, I was wandering around looking like a hobo in an oversized jacket because I had it on hand, it fit around my midsection and did the trick of keeping out the wind. My mom took note and one day a few weeks ago, a pretty red pea coat showed up at my door, sparing me of further winter fashion wreckage.

I’ve been both relieved and alarmed that clothes kept from college, mostly for sentimental reasons, fit me nicely in my current condition. Yesterday I wore a t-shirt from 1997 to the gym because it actually fit over my belly with some room to spare. If my twenty-year-old self knew then that her pregnant future self would call on the same clothes out of desperation, maybe I would have cut back a little on the college snacks.

I’m at the point where bending over to tie my shoes is difficult, so slip-on Mary Janes and such are incredibly functional and convenient. A few dress up occasions have required tights or panty hose for which I could find no maternity equivalent. I resorted to plus-size, which offer FULL coverage, completely over the belly, without feeling like I’m squeezing the baby out of me. Between being covered nearly 3/4 of the way with lycra in those hose and my giant bra, I am certainly a picture of a “wanton sex goddess”, as Bridget Jones would say.

The bigger the baby gets, the more likely it is that my pants slowly sag down off of my waist and shirts ride up to reveal my stomach as I walk around (and I’m wearing maternity clothes!).

These wardrobe malfunctions, though, are a small tradeoff for the baby bump they are (barely) covering.