Reality Setting In

I'm not sure why, but it took until last night to realize that I'm going to be a mom in about 3 months.

In all honesty, I've been calling myself a mom for years now, ever since I had angel babies. It was the only thing that got me through Mother's Day. But now that I may actually be a mother of living babies, I was struck dumb by it last night!

I'm guessing if I were the one 24 weeks pregnant, maybe it would have occurred to me sooner, but actually doing baby shopping, planning my registry and googling 24 weeks pregnant (something I do every week because I will NEVER sign up for Baby Center emails again- those bastards don't understand to stop sending weekly emails if you have a miscarriage) seems to have driven it through my thick skull. Sure, no matter how many blog posts I've written about babies up to now, it still was this far off dream that I thought of occurring in the distant, distant future, not in a few months. I've had that dream for so long, it just doesn't seem real now.

I'm not sure exactly what happened to all of a sudden make me think, "Hey I'm worthy of calling myself an expectant mother!" but all of a sudden I felt like I was. I felt like I would sneer at anyone who thought I wasn't. Where did that come from?

A couple of things have happened on the baby front recently that must have led to this...though I'm not quite sure how I made the leap. The first was that we attended a diaper service class (we plan on cloth diapering) a week and a half ago. We were the only ones in this session, with the diaper service owner and her assistant. I could have sworn that the assistant was pregnant (but thank God I didn't ask her because it turns out she's not, nor does she have kids), so I was feeling a little sensitive about not being pregnant. The owner asked when we were expecting, and since I don't plan on ever seeing the owner again, nor did I feel like getting into my story, I told her February, and said we were about 23 weeks along. She looked at me in amazement and said, "Wow, I never would have guessed you're 23 weeks with twins! You look so small! (Me smiling inside). "No, that's a good thing!" she assures me. "Seriously, I was thinking you were 16 weeks, max!" (Me not smiling inside).

Oh yay. I look 16 weeks pregnant! If she hadn't said the last sentence, I probably would have told her that we were expecting via gestational carrier, but then I justified my closed mouth by not wanting to make her feel bad that she just told me how fat I look. I'm sure she would have been embarrassed.

As for me, I guess I should just be glad I *only* look 16 weeks pregnant and not 23 :)

Then last week I had my 6 month dental check up and I went to ask if I could have another checkup in less than 6 months (as I will be on maternity leave 6 months from now and without dental insurance during that time, and if I wait till I'm back at work it will be almost a year before my next checkup). The YOUNG! receptionist asked  me why I needed to have it so early, and I told her I would be on maternity leave. So she tells me, "I need to check to make sure you can have a dental cleaning in your third trimester." So, hemming and hawing I had to tell her that I wasn't going to be in my third trimester and could get that damn checkup if I wanted to, thankyouverymuch! Of course, my dental hygenist happened to wander over to the front desk just as I was explaining and strangely enough the receptionist actually said to me, "I thought it was illegal to do surrogacy in NY?"

Who the hells knows about the legality of surrogacy? So random. I explained to her what we were doing and the hygenist was SO interested and asked if I minded a personal question. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound so I said sure. She wanted to know if we used my eggs or donor eggs. WHO THE HELL ASKS THAT?? I told her they were mine.

She was so interested and so "That's Awesome!" about it that it really made me feel better about things. That may have been the turning of the tide for me.

So yesterday I went to pick up a Bumbo seat from a consignment store and I really wanted someone to ask me a question about my kids/pregnancy so I could tell them what we're doing and I was bummed that they didn't. Hahaha!! Talk about a reversal of feelings!

I've given up on trying to make sense of...myself.