When we first moved into our still new house in December the neighbor’s orange tree which slightly hangs over our fence was full of bright oranges. They looked delectable, so I snatched one off the tree, peeled it and proceeded to bite into a not quite ripe but juicy fruit. I couldn’t believe that something that looked so ready was not, and I hoped that eventually the fruit would sweeten.
Every week or so, I picked another fruit off the tree, checking the ripeness. Finally in early March, the sweetness had begun to peak and the oranges started to drop off the branches into our yard. It was satisfying to have waited and wondered about the quality of fruit for so long and then to be happily surprised by the refreshing and sweetness of them.
And so it goes with Baby Blueberry. Now every day I wonder about this little person inside me. She’s not particularly crazy in her motions, but she likes to push and stretch a lot. In fact, I can’t tell whether I’m having Braxton-Hicks contractions (which are a tightening of a small area of the uterus and not an indication of labor) or not because she stretches so much. She pushes her little butt up against my belly and her feet on the left side. So what is this little stretcher like?
Unlike the oranges, I don’t have the satisfaction of seeing the outside of the fruit. All I know is that my belly is a bowling ball. What do ultrasounds tell you about how the baby looks? She looks like a little sweet infant at 22 weeks…
Like with the oranges, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what I will encounter. There are all the bad things to dwell on (which I work hard on avoiding), and then all of the wonderful imaginings about what she’ll look like and how she’ll act.
The suspense grows daily at this point as I near the 40 week mark. All I know is that I hope for a sweet, juicy, and healthy little Blueberry. And an easy labor. Is that too much to ask?