revjim.net

This probably sounds obvious to you now buy, if you looked at my life 9 months ago — a snapshot in time — and then again now there's been quite a few changes.

Back then, I was working constantly and traveling back and forth to New York like an international man of mystery. Jess was working at a local bank. I had a photography studio upstairs in my house. We knew that some day, some time soon, we'd be moving to New York.

Now today, I don't travel at all any more. Hell, I'm afraid to even go into the office most days just in case Jess should go into labor while I'm away. Jess hasn't worked in about 6 months. My photography studio is gone. We aren't moving to New York any more. Jess sleeps a lot more than she did back then. She gets tired quicker too. She can't bend or lift like she used to, can't stand on her feet as long, and can't do as much around the house. So I'm having some extra weight to carry. She looks a bit different too — not that I'm complaining, because she looks absolutely amazing.

Any one of these changes would be difficult to bear. All of them changing all at once just seems impossible when I look back. But, you know what? It wasn't. In fact, if you told me it'd be like this forever now, I'd be okay with that. Even if I was the one that all the physical changes happened to. Unless I actually look back at now and then, it doesn't even seem like all that much. It happened relatively slowly and I had the most incredible woman by my side through it all, and my family and a couple of friends ready to help if I even so much as hinted at it. I think that, when faced with gradual change — even great change like this, and even when "gradual" isn't all that slow — I deal with it pretty well.

But here's where it gets harder. In two weeks (or maybe tomorrow, or maybe a month from now) Jess will indicate to me that it's time to go, and off to the hospital we'll rush. Should a police officer even think about pulling me over and ticketing me then and he'll be in for a fun ride. Then 1 or 2 or 4 or 8 or 48 hours of labor later we'll have a beautiful baby girl in our arms and everything will have changed — again.

Jess will look different again. There will be another mouth to feed and another butt to cover. There will be puke, and poop, and spit up, and diapers. There will be a tiny life that can't even pick up her own head or roll herself over in bed that will look toward Jess and I for 100% of her care. I'll no longer have a good excuse for not going in to the office or traveling to places way outside of driving distance for me. The constant fear of what might happen while I'm away will drive me insane even though I know that Jess is perfectly capable — hell, more capable — than I am of caring for our child without me. There will be family obligations, baby sitters to interview, doctors appointments to make and keep and worry about. And a million other things that I don't even know about yet.

Only this time I don't have 9 months to get used to it gradually. In one second she wont be here — and in the next she will. And it all changes. Just like that. And I've never been more scared or excited in my entire life. She'll have ruined everything, in the nicest way.