First thing’s first, the thing I’d been most wondering about (and trust that you might have been also): My capacity for stillness had just about expired, and hallelujah, I’m free to buzz! My BP improved and my weight didn’t go up. I’m cleared to return to my normal self! In that vein, I spent last night putting away a million pieces of baby stuff that we received over the weekend and made sure that I had catalogued the giver of each gift. I’m not exaggerating – your dad and I have about 100 thank-you notes to write. We are so blessed with friends and family and friends of family – all of whom are celebrating the fact that you are on your way. We have almost everything we need and what we don’t have we’ll soon have. I can safely say that if I went into labor this very minute it would be a-okay.
I have a funny story. Remember in an entry I wrote a long time ago I mentioned that I’d had a dream about your birth? It was the dream in which you were named Corinth. Well, I never told you that whole dream, but it’s relevant, so I will. In the dream, your dad and I were at home and we were studying the Love Poem from the book of First Corinthians. (This would never happen, so there’s your first cue that this was a dream). Then an ice storm came and we lost our power and our heat. The brown suede recliner was in the living room at that time. (It isn’t anymore. It’s in your room now.) While sitting in that chair I went into labor, and your dad went outside and realized that the weather was just too bad to go anywhere. We would have to deliver you at home. So, from the recliner I gave birth to you. Your dad cut the cord by candle and firelight. All was well, and we named you Corinth Gradyn Edwards Brown, to be called Cory.
Well, that’s a sweet story for a dream, but only when you feel pretty confident that it won’t actually happen. I, however, have little confidence that we’ll be able to avoid bad weather when it’s actually time for you to come. Chapel Hill notoriously has weird and wacky weather and strange and inconvenient times, and a January 31 due date puts us smack in the middle of wacky weather time. So, I’ve joked a lot about that dream but I would not think it was very funny if you came by candlelight in the dark and cold. I know those sorts of births have happened safely for thousands of years, but I’m just not sure that I could deal with that.
So, I’ve been annoyed with the heat in this apartment for the last couple of months. It seemed to me like it just wasn’t working, but at times I thought that it was. But at the doctor’s yesterday, where we discussed that labor can really happen anytime, the doctor mentioned that the weather is predicted to be bad these next few days including snow and rain. Well I know what that means – ice! If the weather gets just a little colder than they think it will, and rain has fallen, there will be ice. So thinking the cold could be really problematic in these next few days, I finally called the apartment managers. They said they’d send someone out to look at the heat. Great! They also said that the people might not be able to come till the next day (today), so they’d send someone out with a bunch of room heaters. Again, great! Great - right up until I plugged in one of the heaters in the bedroom and took out half the lights in the house. So there we were – no heat, no light, and a forecast of ice. I dismissed it as amusing and trusted that I had not become a prophet in the last nine months, so I slept fine; but I confess, when the heating and cooling guy came about an hour ago and discovered/fixed the problem with the heater, I was glad, and when he applied his further wisdom to get all the lights back on, I was even gladder. So here we are – you and me – sitting in a well lit and warm living room, pounding out a blog entry and feeling very glad. How much we usually take for granted!!
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