Dancing Baby

Sometimes, I wish I could see what you are doing. I feel those little kicking feet and grabbing hands, the spinning and dancing. I can see your movements as I rest my hands on my abdomen, and they bounce up and down. When you are moving, I dare not use my belly as a book-rest, as the words will not stay in place.

Sometimes your head causes me to feel lop-sided, off-center. Sometimes, it is difficult to breathe. Then I gently caress your precious skull, nudge it out of the way so I am more comfortable. Sometimes you let me stay in comfort for a while before returning to your previous cozy position.

I don't remember feeling so much when your brothers were babies. Perhaps I was less attentive then, or perhaps my body was simply less worn down by the work of time and chasing two boys. There are other things that I don't remember: early contractions, not painful, but the odd sensation of an involuntary hug for my little boy, and those ailments that were probably the victims of selective memory: lower back pain, aching joints, too-frequent trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Too, I sometimes feel over-sized and over-stuffed, ready to bring you into this world, although by the numbers you still have seven or eight weeks left in the warm confines of my womb. I am convinced, through my hazy memory, that I didn't feel this full with my previous babies until much closer to their due dates.

It is partly this feeling of fullness, partly stories related to me by friends and strangers alike, partly the abundance of feeling, and partly a dream last spring about a baby girl that leave me with a little fantasy, despite multiple early ultrasounds witnessing to the contrary, that I am carrying both a boy and a girl. I try to enjoy this fantasy for what it is, and take no expectations from it.

I wonder if you will arrive early, if the hospital is really baby-friendly, if labor will again be induced, if I will avoid anesthesia or drugs, and if you, like your brothers, will come quickly. But your birth will be what it will be, when you are ready.

Harboring expectations would not be fair to you, my dancing baby boy, who, like your brothers, reminds me to look at the world with new eyes.