Preparing and waiting and how faith factors into all this
A friend of mine is 34 weeks pregnant and her baby’s room is all decorated and she has spent the better part of the last few months obsessing about color schemes. My niece is preparing for her pregnancy and just announced the crib is in and she and my nephew are having fun fluffing the nest.
We get a weekly update from babycenter telling us how big the baby is in our belly right now and how we are feeling a lot of activity. We know this because BG tells us about it too.
But the “baby” room is remarkably unchanged. There are no little socks or dresses washed and folded. And there is certainly no wall color pondering going on around here.
In the Jewish religion it is bad luck to buy anything and bring it into the house before the baby comes. Croatia has a similar superstition. So does Russia for that matter, which is why my Russian pregnant friend put all the stuff from her baby shower at a friend’s house.
We pacify ourselves by saying we are following custom. But what we are really doing is taking a wait and see approach because in the state of Louisiana, a birthgiver can change her mind up to five days after the baby is born.
So we prepare for the baby by having faith. We look at children in strollers, in the park, in mother’s arms and on father’s shoulders, and hope that we too, will soon be mothers. But our nesting is internalized, we are preparing ourselves daily for this important role by reading, talking, asking questions, and hoping that we are bringing the baby home.
When someone asked me if I am prepared, I just respond, “I’ve been preparing for half a century.”