Until today, I had celebrated three national holidays with my daughter in utero. Let's just say they were very different from any holiday I had celebrated before she came along.
I learned that I was pregnant on November 14, just a short time before Thanksgiving. I had just enough time to freak out on my own before Turkey time rolled around and my family needed to know. I didn't quite know how to say, "Hey mom and dad, I know I'm young, broke and still in college, but I'm having a baby this summer!" The easiest part of Thanksgiving was telling myself that I could eat as many pieces of pumpkin pie as I wanted.
By the time Christmas rolled around, I had settled into a new lifestyle of caring for my unborn child and feeling much more comfortable in my situation. The holiday season meant it was time for me to interact with my extended family. On Christmas Day, I journeyed to Chicago with my dad, stepmom and siblings to tell everyone in my father's family that I was expecting a little addition. The only catch was that my siblings, Jack (11), Carly (9) and Thomas (6) couldn't know about their impending niece or nephew just yet. My big news had to be shared quietly with each individual person. I will admit, though, it was fun watching each of them react separately.
The only was to describe New Years is to say that it was intensely sober. Like any college student, I was accustomed to throwing back cheap liquor while watching the ball drop and nursing my hangovers with greasy Chinese food the next day. Not this year. I watched Ryan Seacrest host Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve on TV from my couch in Louisville, wearing sweatpants and chugging down sparkling grape juice.
You might think this celebration sounds like five kinds of lame, but please believe me when I say it wasn't. To adjust a quote from the immaculate Ferris Bueller, I must say that pregnancy goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. New Years was my chance to sit on the couch and bask in my pregnancy. I wasn't out with friends doing stupid things I would be embarrassed by the next day. I was contentedly perched on the sofa with my mom while Willow Smith whipped her hair back and forth on TV.
My siblings learned on Saturday night that they will have a niece this summer, and much to my delight, they were overjoyed. When I left them on Sunday to return to Lexington, they first hugged me and then wrapped their little hands around my belly while they whispered goodbyes to baby girl.
So today is Valentine's Day. I spent part of the afternoon with an old lover, (McDonald's french fries) and I just got back from firing up a registry at Babies R' Us. I have no complaints. My heart is full to the brim with love for my daughter. She makes any holiday much more interesting. I can't imagine what she'll bring to my life when she's here right around the Fourth of July.
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