To plan or not to plan (possible trigger).

I am so thankful that our little baby within is a mover and a shaker. Right when I start to worry a little s/he wriggles or jiggles and lets me know that s/he's okay and alive in there.

I have nothing ready for this baby except a bin of unwashed baby girl stuff and a bin of unwashed baby boy stuff. The crib that all our children (except little J, who came with her own) have used has not ever been taken apart and put away since our oldest son, Samuel, was in it.

When Eva died we could not bear to take her bed apart and put her stuff away. Gradually the crib moved from her room that she shared with little J to our bedroom where we displayed photos and kept some of her stuff. When that woman came over from our church to tell me about how her brother kept her nephew's ashes on the mantle and the family talked about him too much and how I was prickly and unpleasant and how my grieving heart gave me no call to be that way...she was sitting right next to Eva's ashes that are on our bookshelf. But I did have a little thought to myself that it sure was a good thing she never came into our bedroom, and saw Eva's crib with all her stuff in it. Probably would have thought we had a shrine to our daughter...I digress.

Anyway, the crib has never been taken apart and just moved from baby to baby. We could not bear to take it apart when Eva died and then when we were hoping for another baby it became a symbol of hope to us. That another baby would one day use that crib again...and then when we were feeling so hopeless and just about ready to take it down we got a positive test that showed we did have hope.  And so we left it up. But it's still full of Eva's things.

I need to go through her stuff and put it in mouse-proof bins (I wish I had a beautiful cedar chest). But the weeks drag on and so do I. I sometimes wonder if this baby will come and there will be nothing ready. No crib, no diapers, no clean outfits, no shelf in our closet emptied off for tiny baby clothes, no birth plan (although, barring an emergency, I know what I want and, more importantly, what I don't want). The time is trucking along and I do nothing to prepare for baby. I don't know if it's a blockage or if I'm just lazy but I just can't seem to get myself together to get ready.

I hope more than anything this baby is just born alive and, really, who cares if we're ready or not but I have always liked to have things ready for a new baby and this is just not like the me I used to be. Always having everything planned...but there are so many parts of me that are not like the me I used to be...should I really be surprised?