I’m 38 weeks pregnant this week. These days are long and sweet and challenging and beautiful. I’m up for hours almost every night either unable to sleep or coping through braxton hicks and it gives me more time than I’ve ever had to think. I lie there and say to myself, “I’m so glad tonight isn’t the night.” Maybe I feel too tired to even imagine facing labor. Maybe that day was so sweet I can’t bear to think of things changing yet. Maybe I’m feeling nervous as I breathe through the practice contractions and am grateful for another night I don’t have to do the real thing. But then, come morning, I can’t stop dreaming about who this little one is.

We do little things to prepare a bit more each day. I fold impossibly tiny onesies and stack newborn diapers. I bake muffins to put in the freezer. The kids sing songs to my belly and tell me they guess it’ll be a baby brother. And a sister. And a brother again. We go for a family walk every day and pick flowers, they climb trees, Keogena pushes her baby stroller and we say “soon, I’ll be pushing our baby in a stroller with you.”

It could be tonight, it could be in three weeks, but the moment this baby goes from filling my womb with kicks to filling our home with joy and newborn magic is just around the corner.

I can’t wait for the next part to start. I never want this part to end.