So, here we are.  The 25^th of August.  On my calendar the day is marked as Cheshire’s due date and although I am completed schooled in the idea that due dates are approximations and not to be planned around at all, my eyes opened this morning and I am all expectation.

I cannot compare it to my own due date either to give birth or to meet my child.  I cannot compare it to first days of school—mine or my girls. Not wedding days—mine or Cheshire’s. The plans for those days seemed solid.  We had set paths that only needed to be followed and at the end of the aisle was a known quantity. And it is not like meeting someone and falling in love—those dates are never circled on a calendar. There may be some hazy hope but no definition expectation.

This waiting time is all possibility and unknown. How will he fit into our lives, take up our time, burrow his way into our hearts. This is the possibility of a new reason to open eyes and start the day.

All in his own time  forcing all of us to relinquish the idea of control which we never had in any case.  

I can almost understand planned C-sections.

But not really.

Cheshire was born two weeks early, and now, when I think of it, I don’t remember her exact due date. It might have been May 1^st, but it might have been a few days before or after. Once we were in process of the birthing, that date circled on my calendar faded away and we were all there, right there in the present. 

And I discover again today the depth of my own impatience. There are those who approach these dates circled on calendars with equanimity. Just a very small part of me wishes I was like that but I am not.  In the least.  

This morning, Julia came into my room and asked, has the baby started to be born yet?  As if I had some answer, as if I had some secret knowledge to impart.

So, we went through the day with much too little to do, growing grumpy and impatient. And I am thinking tonight that I better make some plans for our empty weekend and definitely plans for next week.  Perhaps a surfeit of exciting places and events will spur on labor.  And if it doesn’t, we will tire ourselves out and sleep well at night.

Strange, strange day.  A time like no other.