My Favorite River

...is apparently The Nile. As in...DEnial. Why doesn't it feel real yet? Sure, I couldn't have a drink at the bar on Saturday or a beer at our Memorial Day picnic yesterday. But so what?

We haven't done a single thing to get ready. What is wrong with us?

Not one thing has been moved/cleaned from the war zone we call an office...which is supposed to become the nursery. We haven't looked at (never mind budgeted for let alone discussed) daycare. Haven't thought about pediatricians. I bought a cute "I (heart) Daddy" onesie for C for Father's Day, but I opened it, said "oh how cute, look how tiny it is" and put it back in the box. We told C's grandfather, Bub, yesterday...our last living grandparent. I have had more than 4 ultrasounds already and heard the heartbeat twice. I finally bought some maternity clothes this weekend, but wore my regular clothes for the last 3 days instead.

I'm nearly 15 weeks and, though I feel twinges now and then, it just doesn't seem real yet. I know my belly will get bigger, I'll feel little kicks in just a few short weeks, and we'll find out if it's a girl or a boy in less than a month. But I wonder if it'll truly feel real until I'm holding our little walmut in my arms.

I don't know if it's the Sjogren's that has me worried about the health, hearing about a high school friend who just lost her baby at 25 weeks and had to deliver, or the fear that we simply aren't ready....but I just have this "don't get your hopes up" nagging, paranoid, ANNOYING feeling. I want to get my hopes up. I want to get even more excited and nervous and elated and giddy about our baby.

I hear/read birth stories, see pictures of newborns or just hear a song that makes me think of our baby and I cry. The hormones are kicking my ass. And I want to experience everything I read and see and hear about how amazing having a baby is, meeting your little one for the first time, and I know I will...in November.

In the mean time, I wait. To look pregnant, feel kicks, find out the sex, wear maternity clothes, buy our first baby item (and in order to do that we actually need to research something about baby stuff...), take apart the office, assemble it as a nursery and maybe actually just FEEL pregnant and like we're going to have a new family member in a few months.

And a little disclaimer: I don't mean this as a whiny pity party, I know how blessed we are to even be pregnant. It is just a weird time right now.