Junebug is still breech and I have been booked for a c-section early next week, on her due date, at 40 weeks. We had our last growth scan yesterday where she did show some more growth, which is good, although her position made it too hard to measure her chest properly—just to add to our already fraught nerves and overwhelming sense of suspense. After the scan we met with the doctor who’ll be delivering her, who was practical about what will happen and how. I was so worried about having a c-section with her and not getting the chance to ‘squeeze’ her little lungs out… but if she’s decided she wants to keep her head nestled on my placenta, next to my heart until delivery day, so be it. She knows better than us all, really.

While we’re so excited to finally meet Junebug, I dread not having her safe inside me anymore. Erin and I spend a lot of time doing a very delicate balancing act of cautious optimism during the day, but when I wake up at 2am and the fears flood through me, I try to make the most of those quiet hours with just Junebug and me together.

I can’t believe that after all these months, we’re down to just a few more days. Sometimes I still can’t believe any of it. So much has changed, but somehow it feels like it’s always been this way. All the nurses, doctors, dark days, happy days, scans, blood tests, communities, parents, friends, strangers… everything whirls around in my mind and I’m humbled by it all.

We continue to be overwhelmed with the love and thoughts of our friends and families who send messages of hope every day. Our gratitude cannot be put into words. Talk about a crash course in learning about what the most important things are in life. The people we know and love, are just exceptional. I’m surrounded by those I aspire to be as generous, kind and patient as. And along the way, I’ve connected with those I’ve never met, who’ve shown just as much compassion and support. There’s so much to celebrate, even if we’ve been made so very aware of how much we just don’t know—and maybe will never know.

I don’t think I’ll update again before delivery day. But I wrote a short poem—it’s quite personal, but Erin and I would like to share it.

As we keep telling Junebug, once upon a time a doctor told us that we should check for anything “abnormal”, because, “y’know, you don’t want the trouble.” Our sweet, beautiful, precious, spunky, gorgeous, funny, lovely Junebug—we’ll happily take all the trouble. Double. And double again.

Lightning rods

I’m swimming in the ocean, pregnant with a dwarf.

And people keep saying these are healing waters.

But my baby’s chest is still too small.

Did you know that?

That it’s not just about arms and legs (and cruel jokes).

Ribs can be too short, too.

A heart can take up too much space—

Lungs can’t do what they were designed to, when they need to do it most.

Here in the waves, I’m an empty 8-ball,

with no floating fortunes to predict tomorrow.

I just sway with my passenger.

My precious, precious passenger.

And think about how creation isn’t linear—or straight.

It’s curved and bent, like my baby’s femur bones at the 21-week scan.

Like the lines the doctor drew in the sand as she pointed to dates in calendars

and traced charts in textbooks, heavy with pictures of purple and red

specimens.

I still rub my thumb over the same sleeping faces in the image search on my phone at 3am and tell them they are loved.

There are no monsters.

Just little lightning rods, who bore the brunt of life’s great lottery.

Soon I’ll meet my ticket-holder. I’ll see her face and hold her body.

And I’ll wait.

Like I’ve waited, and waited,

And waited,

And hope, that while she takes up all my heart,

That hers has left some space,

To breathe.