Waiting

This morning I am waiting for my new grandson to arrive.  I set the alarm for 5:15 a.m. and came over to Katie and Bill's side of the house.  Here I am in my pajamas, robe, and fuzzy slippers, trying to use up an over-abundance of anxious energy as Katie is checking in to the hospital.  Henry is sleeping, probably for another hour or so, and when he wakes up he'll look for his momma and wonder what is going on.  I'll try to explain to him what's happening, and spend the rest of the morning playing with him and waiting anxiously for the phone call from my son-in-law Bill. 

I made dinner and brought it down last night.  Katie has a freezer-full of meals for after the baby arrives, but last night we kind of stared at each other and said "What do you want to do for dinner?"  Bill was on his way home from Connecticut and wouldn't arrive for a while, so I threw together a qucik meal of Sloppy Joes, baked beans, and cole-slaw.  Then I thought, well, that's probably not the best pre-labor/possible pre-surgery dinner to have ingested.  She barely ate - there's not much room there.  This baby has taken up all her mid-section space.  He's grown and she's shrunk -- a miracle diet that any typical pregnant woman would wish for:  she's only gained 4.5 lbs. this entire pregnancy.  It wasn't intentional, but that's just the way it's gone.  She's quite the sensation in her OB/GYN office - the pregnant woman who doesn't gain weight!

As we sat at the table, her Blackberry kept buzzing.  I thought about how times have changed.  When my babies were due, the phone rang off the hook.  Not these days - nope, these days there are facebook messages and texts to cell phones wishing the new mother well.  Quite an interesting phenomenon for those of us who used the old land-line as our connection to friends and family. 

Henry's probably the only one of us who slept last night.  Just before they left this morning, Katie, in her typical efficiency, crossed items off the list on her legal pad, making sure she can leave household concerns behind as she goes forward into the next phase of her family.  You'd never know that the day ahead is filled with certain challenges, especially since this little baby has decided to wrangle  his way out of position and Katie and the doctors are trying to coax him back into place.  That's the first challenge she faces, and whether he cooperates or not, her new son will be born before the sun sets today. 

I want to be helpful, but there's not much to do here.  This house is ready for its new occupant.  There are baby bottles on the counter, tiny clothes folded and ready, car seats and strollers standing by.  I guess I'll go sit on the couch with Oden, the black lab.  His world is changing today, too.  He was "the baby" until Henry arrived a couple of years ago, and now a new "brother" will be shifting the order of things in the house, ala Marley and Me!  Odie, as Henry calls him,  and I will wait for Henry to wake up, and together we will start this new and exciting day.