Sorry I forgot to send invitations, but I threw a gigantic pity party this morning.

At about 6:40 am, I woke up, my throat on fire from sinus drainage and my belly pulsating with kicks and soreness. I felt a trickle and went to the bathroom. How much is too much? I thought, connoisseur of body fluids that I’ve become lately, my gaze at toilet water a habit I can’t break. But the only gushing came from my nose and eyes.

The doctor told us yesterday that The Kid is still breech and unlikely to turn now that I’m (hand inserted–his, pain felt–mine, face contorted–his, mine, and The Husband’s as he watched) 1.5 centimeters dilated. He spoke of possible complications–my water breaks and TK sits on his cord, and that happened the last time I was in the hospital so I know what it means: blood cut off, oxygen cut off, heart rate descending to the 50s…40s…and nurses rushing in. But I don’t have monitors and nurses at home–I am the nurse and the monitor and what if I miss it? What if the water breaks and I don’t know and TK can’t breathe and that is all on me?  I emerged from the bathroom a broken woman, tears and snot streaming down my face, TH at a loss for how to handle the puddle I’d become. So he just held me, a skill at which he has become a professional.

The doctor had said other things, though it was harder to pay attention to them after that first warning and the fear it stirred up. He said that if the contractions got worse, to call. If the water broke, to go straight to the hospital. We scheduled another visit for Monday. Then, on our way home, he rang. He had spoken to the perinatologist, who told him that if I’m dilated more on Monday, we have a new plan: hospital admission and C-section. At 36 weeks. A possible birthday for TK, a plan in pencil on the calendar. I felt better. Then I woke up this morning after a fitful night’s sleep and fell apart.

I cried as I descended the stairs, cried as I sat on the couch and TH came down to say goodbye before leaving for work, work that has been compounded now in light of our new schedule. I put him in the worst of positions as I tried to act like a big girl, tears pooling in my eyes, while he backed out of the driveway, wanting to be two places at once and unable to fix me. I returned to the couch and sobbed, then I gagged, then I sobbed, then I choked, then I sobbed some more. There was some prayer in there too, though not enough. The baby’s water didn’t break, but mine did as the floodgates opened on my tears and thoughts:

I can’t bend down to dust, can’t push the vacuum cleaner around, can’t change the sheets. I won’t come home from the hospital to the cleanest house on the block. I don’t have Kleenex because I can’t go to the damn store. I’m not hungry but I have to eat. What if something goes wrong and I don’t know it? What if he can’t breathe and it’s my fault? Why does this all have to be on me? Is this the kind of mother I’ll be, always afraid?

And then, the thought that flew above them all: I just want him to be okay.

That’s when I knew I was in trouble. That’s when I knew what was wrong. Because I may have my ancestresses to thank for a heredity of worrying, and I may be full of hormones, and I may know in my head that feelings are about as likely to consistently tell the truth as politicians are. But despite all the mistakes I’m prone to make, there is another action I’m prone to and I will never be free of it: love. In that moment of crying and praying and watching the truth distill to one thought, I knew that the bond between us that has been growing for months, often without my knowledge and despite my irritation, is unbreakable. The bond that began when I met TH and began to lose my freedom; the bond that will tie us as a family forever. Love kills independence. Love means my heart will never be its own again. Love has tethered the three of us inextricably together, and even as I sit on the couch by myself, I know I will never be alone again. And…this is terrifying.

Then I remember all the things I’ve done up until now, the degrees attained and distances traveled and I realize that I haven’t been alone for any of it. It’s just that none of those people who walked with me, who supported me, depended on me for life. I remember the One who has been there for all of it, who will never leave, and I can’t believe that once again I’ve left him out of Now. As if I would get to this point and He would stand idly by while it all fell apart. As if He doesn’t know anything about losing independence, about loving so much it hurts.

I think about the life inside of me, soon to emerge and upend ours, this little person I now achingly love. I remember how we chose his name and then I looked up its meaning, disappointed in what I found because I couldn’t immediately see significance in it: supplanter. One who takes the place of something else. Now I see it. I think of my heart, beating for its own purpose so much of my life, now beating on behalf of another. I take a deep breath. I pray. My eyes dry for now, but I wait for the water to break…and I let myself be held.