Twelve hours

Twelve hours. That's it. A year and a half of waiting and we are down to the final 12 hours.

I can't really wrap my head around this. Tomorrow, we are going to be parents. Tomorrow, we'll see our son and walk away with him in our arms.

There's been a picture in my mind throughout these months of our union. The Man will hold Little Man in his arms with a look of amazement and joy on his face. Little Man will look at the two of us, a little surprised and wondering what's ahead. And I'll struggle to watch them both through the tears that will undoubtedly be in my eyes. I've seen this moment a thousand times, and it's always wonderful and exciting.


I just can't believe that tomorrow is the day that we'll get to see how this scene actually plays out!

There's all these gushy happy things I'm feeling, but alongside that are some really huge freak-out sort of thoughts and feelings. There's the worry about how Little Man will react when we walk away with him. Sadness that this chapter of his life is coming to a close. Guilt about taking him away from Korea. Anxiousness about becoming a parent. And fear that perhaps being a parent won't be what I imagined.


I'm a cautious person. I like to do things well, and to do that I am super prepared. But even though I read all the parenting books I could cram into the past year, and read message boards, and talked to friends, I still don't feel like I'm really prepared. I feel like I'm about to take a huge exam tomorrow and I didn't study well enough.

I think that stuff is coming out in my dreams. Over the past few nights I dreamt that I left Little Man at a restaurant, didn't remember to use a carseat, and fed him incorrectly which resulted in his head shrinking like the guy's heads in Beetlejuice. (That was the weirdest one of all, and in my dream I was searching the internet trying to figure out how to get his tiny head back to the appropriate baby size.)

I know all of this stems from my difficulty with change. I'm great once the change actually happens. But when I am standing on the precipice of change, I tend to panic. Even when it's a change for the better or something I really wanted, I still cling tenaciously to the past. I have a hard time moving forward.

So tomorrow, the theoretical kid that I've had in my head all these years will become a reality. It really scares the shit out of me. But that's normal, right?

No doubt there's going to be a lot for me to sort out emotionally in the coming months. I'm a slow processor that way. I'm hoping that being a parent will teach me to be more in the moment and less in my head. I'm sure, that's only a tiny part of the lessons parenthood will have in store for us.