67 Days

When I was first pregnant and giddy with excitement and not teaching four classes and working at a learning center and falling asleep at 9pm at night wearing wrist guards to help my ridiculous carpal tunnel, I signed up for all of these daily and weekly pregnancy e-mails.

The sort of things that say, "Your baby is the size of a blueberry!" and then "Your baby is the size of a grapefruit!"  They offer links to lots of sponsored products and articles that are more or less informative and eventually everything seemed to pretty much say the same thing so it eventually got to the point that I would quickly glance at whatever fruit-stage Baby Duck had hit this week and then delete the e-mail.  (FYI, Baby Duck is now about the size of a head of cabbage and weighs around 3 lbs.  Feels more like a 20 pound bowling ball, but obviously I'm not a medical professional.)

Today I got an e-mail that made me do a double take.

"67 days to go!"

What.  The.  [Expletive Edited].

On the one hand 67 is a lot of days.

On the other hand, the last time I noticed this little day by day countdown, I had something like 116 days to go.  67 is way fewer than 116 days.  67 days is practically NO TIME AT ALL.

Part of me is saying that 67 days is a lot of time to sleep in freaking wrist braces, but the other part of me is thinking about the nursery and the pregnancy checklist in my "Essential" pregnancy planner and the hospital tour and selecting a pediatrician and all of these things that I haven't checked off yet!  I ONLY HAVE 67 DAYS TO GO!

I know, I know.  A due date is a guesstimate--Baby Duck might come early or she might come late.  But still.  That number just stopped me in my tracks. 

67 days.

Before everything changes.  Before the dogs' lives turn upside down.  Before a full night's sleep becomes a distant memory.  Before we become parents. 

It's awesome.  And terrifying. 

67 days.