Four weeks.

In four weeks (or less) we will bring a completely new human being home from the hospital. Holy hell. And by that I mean Yay! And also, OMFG. I oscillate between excitement and cold fear.

In some ways, I am completely prepared. Cloth diapers located? Check. Washed? Check. Folded and neatly put away? Check, check. Newborn and infant boys clothing brought up from storage room? Check. Sorted, washed, folded and put away? Check, check, check, check. Infant car seat inspected and ready for action? Check. Sleeping space figured out? Eh. Maternity leave notes written and staff prepped for my absence? Uh… Mentally prepared for assuming responsibility for another human being’s upbringing and quality foundation of life? Oh god, oh god, oh god.

And now begins the slippery slide down. The slippery slide is filled with hyperventalaty (yes, I did just make that word up, actually, what of it?) gasps of breath, irritation about our condo being too small and worries about selling it (or worse, not selling it) and waking up at four am to wonder about who will take care of X,Y, or Z while I am out of the office. We have no bassinet, no crib, no play pen set up, because setting one up would eat up approximately all of the space in our bedroom and in order to sell it we need to make the room look huge! And airy! And spacious! The crib is actually the least of my concerns at the moment. More likely than not, we will co-sleep as we did with Jay and Ella for the first year or so and a crib would just get in the way.

Of more concern is my mental state.

When we were expecting Jay, we did what many expectant parents do. We took a childbirth class. We read pregnancy books. We shopped for strollers and baby carriers and cloth diaper wraps. We planned the nursery. Friends and family threw us baby showers. We had conversations about The Baby and Life with The Baby and all the cool, fun, awesome stuff we would do with The Baby.

Through all of this stuff, it never occurred to me what registering for baby bathtubs and reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting and going to baby showers were actually doing. They were helping me, us, to mentally prepare for this colossal transition. We thought a lot about what life would be like with a baby because this was a life changing event. We knew that everything would be different when we met our new little guy for the first time. And it was. When we were expecting Ella, because she was a girl, I was able to mentally prepare by shopping for cute girly clothes and thinking about what life would be like with a daughter and by reorganizing Jay’s room to turn it into “The Kids Room.” I read books about VBACs and thought a lot about labor, since I had Jay with a c-section.

But now that we already have an inventory of cloth diaper wraps and booster seats and onsies and have read all the books we have had time to read and don’t need a childbirthing class and can’t find the time to have a conversation about our day, none-the-less about The Baby, I find myself casting about for what I should be doing to mentally prepare. There is no nursery to prepare because our condo is only two bedrooms and there is no mysterious labor to study up on because I had a great VBAC experience with Ella. I haven’t spent the hours daydreaming about what life will be like when our new little guy comes along because I already kind of know and also know that I can not really ever know, because it is all so different, with every kid, and on any given day.

So, this is a post about how I am ready and so very not ready at the same time. Which, I guess, maybe means that I am ready.

Note to the Universe: That last statement was not intended to indicate any actual degree of readiness, particularly in the next two to three weeks. We still have to do things like find and buy a glider with a matching ottoman and replace my slippers for pacing the halls at the hospital and steam clean the carpets before we can bring a baby home. And also, I am so not ready. Seriously.