I think last night my baby moved down a bit. Not all the way down, as in when the baby's head engages in the pelvis before labor, but down enough for me to wake up feeling different. Suddenly when I sit down, I feel my big belly on my legs. It's a good thing, really, because this kid has been kicking me in the ribs a lot lately. There was a lot of movement and mild uterine contractions yesterday evening, so now I know why. Besides that, it was just one of those little reminders that one of these days will be the big one, the one where baby moves down and out. Six weeks to go, more or less, and time is flying by.
But oddly enough, I don't think about labor a whole lot. My life and my thoughts have been very occupied with other things. The sun is just coming up, and as it gets lighter outside, the rooster next door starts his morning routine. Next I'll be hearing the baby horse on the other side, trying to wake up her mom and everybody else with her stomping. And I sit in between, in the one room loft apartment of a barn, with my husband in our big bed to my left, and my kids in the bunk bed to my right. Downstairs I have the basic amenities, a small kitchen, a bathroom, a place for my armchair, which my family recently admitted is comfy despite its ugliness. The scenery is a contrast to my big house in the suburbs, where I was until two months ago, when I started this move, and now when I go into the city, it feels so cramped, so many strangers everywhere, so busy.
Yesterday the kids turned around to find a deer in the driveway, standing right behind them. Earlier this week my daughter spent all afternoon picking wild raspberries, only to come back with none, because I guess she ate them all on her walk home. Who can blame her? Across the road a ways, two rivers meet. One is fast and cold, the other slow, warmer and deeper. We often go swimming there in the heat of the afternoon, and I find that in the river, all the tension in my body is washed downstream, and I emerge feeling like a new person, relaxed and energized.
But the mornings are getting colder, and in the foothills, frost is already appearing. Soon summer will be over, and river swims will have to wait until next year. As I set up my little farm and settle into life here, my thoughts drift to the near future. My fall preparations, bring my tomatoes inside to ripen, set up garden beds for next year, plant garlic. Then soon after, set up my birthing pool near the fireplace downstairs, have a baby, breast feed. Everything revolves around the passing of time. A season is changing in my life, which brings me to a new place, and whatever else I will learn while I am here, time will tell.
