I'm not sure how one answers this question, which seems to surface several times a day now. Can you ever really be ready for big, life-changing events? They didn't really cover that in our birthing class or the three books I have been pouring over... identifying the point when you can claim readiness. Because who can really be so bold as to declare readiness to take on the responsibility for a whole human being? I fear that when this question arises at work, as it often does, I make a scary face.For us, I think we get a few tasks crossed of the list, exhale, and then I panic about the idea of never being truly ready to cross the "point of no return" line (which is ironic as the line was crossed months ago), and Paul reminds me to breathe.
On Friday, we could finally declare some of our important waypoints reached. My sales conference was finished, my work chores organized to some level for the leave, we caught the midnight show of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - and more importantly, the baby has means of making it home from the hospital (car seat), a place to sleep other than a drawer, clothing, diapers.
I've read up on labor but the very first thing each of those books tell you is that every experience is different. There's no exact recipe for birth. We made a birth plan, of sorts, with flexibility being Point No. 1, and compiled a list of names we like. We filled out the paperwork for maternity leave. Paul won't take his "bonding time" as FedEx calls it until February.
Tonight we celebrated another very important waypoint, Paul's birthday, with friends, sushi, and coconut cake.
The good thing about not feeling ready is that you're not terribly impatient with the waiting for what's ahead (although healthy anticipation lies there as well). You just take another look at the list of tasks and head toward what's next to cross off.
