Checking in at the halfway point.

It isn't really comparing, what I am doing. It is more...re-living. It's like those flashback scenes in the movies...you know, the really corny ones where they show our heroine watching her kids play at the park and then, BAM! flashback of 20 years that is the entire movie, then fade back to the smiling mom.

I have spent more time in the last month thinking about the specifics of our son (what he looked like, what his personality was like, his favourite foods, his active times of day) than I ever have before. And it isn't really comparing pregnancies. It is more like I start to experience what this baby is bringing to me and I am catapulted back two years.

It is very hard for me to really give this baby his/her due. Each passing day, I get a little bigger and kicks get a little stronger. I spend more time surfing the net, at places like www.babyfit.com or the like. I spend more money on nursery items or baby clothes. It is almost as if I believe that I am going to have a baby to raise.

Yet, I don't think that I really do believe it. We "decided to start our family" in the spring of 2003. A combined 20 months of "trying" and 1 1/2 pregnancies later, we still have an empty nursery. And the fact that my current due date is 2 years + a few days after our son's due date makes this surreal experience into something Matrix-esque. It is like my life is caught in some sort of insane loop.

I have re-lived our son's delivery and birth so many times in the past 3 weeks, it is like someone put a DVD on repeat in my brain. It isn't painful they way it was - those thoughts were once like picking at a scab; it hurt like hell, but I couldn't resist. Now it is more like looking at a car wreck from a distance, like an accident reconstruction specialist. This is what happened, these were the emotions, this is how things looked. Like a list in my brain. God, he was beautiful.

When I try to imagine a life with this baby, it is my son's face that I see. Understandable, I suppose, but it certainly doesn't feel fair. Perhaps this un-asked-for disconnect explains some of my desire to have all new things for this baby. I feel as though someday (and perhaps sooner than I expect??) I may feel a little more at peace with it all, but for now it is all very disconcerting.