My least favorite having a baby phrase is “We’re pregnant” (yeah, right!) and my most favorite is “expectant mother.” Everything good about pregnancy is wrapped up in that term. While waiting for the small person whose room and board you are literally supplying with body and soul, you spend most waking and many sleeping moments anticipating, expecting. What they will look, feel, sound like. What the big day will entail and how you’ll deal with it. What dad’s performance and reaction will be. What the family will think and feel (and hopefully not say). You project what motherhood will be and what this child will become. Great expectations. One thing we don’t seem to realize until late
r is that people don’t have to be earthside for very long before they start to have their own expectations. Since being pregnant at forty takes ten eternities, I had a lot of time for contemplation and expectation while waiting to meet Scarlett. And I got most of it wrong. Two years ago today, Scarlett Aurora arrived and has been nothing but her authentic self since. She’s tall, won’t wear hairbows and can already recite the alphabet--all things I didn’t expect. She also craves the outdoors but didn’t expect to be born to indoor parents. It’s never quite how you see it in your head. In Jane O’Connor’s Fancy Nancy, our glamour girl can’t understand her plain family. Then something happens she doesn’t expect…P.S. Happy Birthday, Scarletta!
http://www.amazon.com/Fancy-Nancy-Jane-Oconnor/dp/0060542098
http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/12552/Jane_OConnor/index.aspx
