For the past week, I have been sure the baby is arriving, at least once each day.  Strong sensations, and the feeling that the little head is right there…I’m grateful for the time, and hoping even that I have another week.  But we had the market this morning, and I had planned to attend, so when I woke up to a trickle of liquid at 3 am, I called Lee who is still in Queenstown, and he started out, and we missed the market, and Lee called in, saying I was in the birth process, and then I sent our beloved coordinator an email, telling her today is birth-day…and now it’s two am the next morning, and there is still no baby, and I feel like a fraud… (L., if you ever read this, I really did think our baby was arriving!  Not just being a delinquent market-shirker!).  I think I have been leaking for a few days, no big deal, just part of the process.

I attended a birth just last week, and it was beyond gorgeous.  Completely falling in love with my families is an inevitability.  All these wonderful fathers, gorgeous strong mothers, and beautiful children coming into the world so easily, peacefully, ecstatically.

That will be the case for this baby of ours, too.  And yet, I’m getting used to (again, always) the reality that this birth is not going to be what I was planning.  The solo part may come to fruition, because Lee and I remain on opposite ends of the province.  I’m back at the church, and thinking I may just stay here until things in Queenstown are somewhat under control which might be never, and it might be in a while.  Lee has Horus.  Horus has been having a hard time lately.  Maybe I’m having a hard time lately.  In any case, Horus has been outside, collecting tadpoles and salamanders, and helping his dad paint the house and put things back together, and I am here with Treva and Felix and having to contend with just these two is just so easy and relaxed…I have been so occupied with birth-work lately, so Lee has been occupied with the three kids for much of the time.  I need to reconnect with Horus… but not now.  I feel horrible, but incapable of dealing.  In just the past few days, I have been unable to remain conscious for more than two hours at a time.  Normally I can sublimate the need to sleep.  Not now.  I move slowly.  Lee has been really working so SO very hard, and probably isn’t receiving enough credit or appreciation.  I don’t know why I’m rambling on about this, it’s so boring.  I suppose what I mean is that this last week (two weeks?) of pregnancy is now, for me, as it often is for every mother, both taxing and totally mundane, and then also, wonderful, mysterious, bittersweet…

I am supposed to go Queenstown tomorrow, but I really don’t want to.  I am enjoying this retreat at the church, on my own, with my two youngest.  We spent several hours today, in the woods.  Everything was blooming madly, gloriously, suddenly, and we lay in the grass and made dandelion crowns, and then plunged into the warm shady woods, and then paddled in the river, and Treva climbed a huge fallen tree, which really was as high up as it looks, and I reveled in the fact that I could sit back and let her climb without having to pretend that I wanted her to get down for the benefit of well-meaning spectators who forget that baby animals explore their world at exactly the right time, in the right way, and that we are forest people since the beginning of time …

I took some pictures, thinking again this might be my last day of pregnancy.  Frankly, I don’t want to paint and I don’t want to deal with messes, and I don’t want swords waved in my face, and I don’t want to find myself yelling at Horus, which I might do if I have to encounter him for more than five minutes.  I love him, and in the past few days, he has displayed behaviour that makes me question the degree to which I have deluded myself into thinking that I am not the worst parent on the planet.  Horus has never been a paragon of sweetness or decorum, and that is ok.  But for the first time, the other day, he really did outdo himself  in the “behaving like a complete lunatic in a a public situation” department, and it left me feeling completely helplessly enraged and, to be honest, shell-shocked.  I won’t go into the details.

Sometimes it does occur to me that perhaps the epidemic of diagnosing children with various issues and disabilities and disorders has as much to do with parents simply wanting and needing some kind of validation or explanation for their children’s psychotic behaviour as much as anything.  I would love an excuse.  And this is no judgement on other parents whatsoever…but in my heart of hearts I don’t think there is anything wrong with Horus, and I don’t think he’s a bad kid. But the instability in our life since his birth has been hardest on him than anyone else.  And that’s no excuse, either.  It does feel crushing sometimes, though.  The reality is, that it is my responsibility to deal with the challenges my son is facing, and the fact is that I just have to put it off until this next one comes out.  Gah.  At least it’s good to know that Horus is outside in Queenstown, roaming, and hopefully engaging in some spontaneous decompression, and the soothing balm that is just being outside.  Main street Florenceville has been tough.

But I stormed off the other day, driving away from Queenstown, never to return.  Lee’s iconoclastic approach to renovations wasn’t exactly a pretext, (I was severely, and, I think, justifiably irritated about the floors), but the real reason is, I realize, that I am tired, and emotionally taxed, and about to give birth, and quite frankly, terrified of the massive investment on all fronts that we have made in the house, and in moving back.  The anniversary of the oil spill is today, and I need to do some cleansing.  Giving birth is always good for that.  I have joked that I am now immune to disaster, but nothing could be farther from the truth, and I am clinging to the hope that we can hold out on the massive mess-ups for at least six months, or even a year…but, haha, life doesn’t work that way at all, and the only security is in surrendering to the beautiful movement: sun, moon, quaking leaf, first snow, new baby.

There is no delineation between birth and not-birth…How do I know I’m in the birth process? Is a question that all newly pregnant mums ask.  You’ll know you’re in the birth process when a baby comes out of your vagina, is my response.  Really, it’s all birth.  There is no “false labor”.  I hate that term.  Again, the suggestion that women are delusional, or hysterical or melodramatic.  Feelings and sensations  and emotions are real.  And everything is the wind…