The eve of September...my due date

Today is the last day of summer. I should have been huge by now, waddling around, taking it easy, ready to welcome my second child into the world in a couple of weeks. Instead, I'm readying myself for the start of another academic year, when now I should have started maternity leave proper.

I have dreaded September since that fateful scan on 1st March. As each month has passed, I've been reminded, painfully, how the world keeps on spinning. I've seen pregnant women walking around and i've compared myself to them (Would I have been that big by now? How come my baby was taken and not theirs? How come they are onto their 2nd/3rd/4th child and they don't seem to have any problems?)

Every time I think of September, I think of it as a hurdle to get past; it's a big red flashing sign in my head. I have dreaded this month so much that I don't know whether I'm going to have a break down this month, or whether the thought of it will be worse than the actual reality.

Will my issues with bumps-the-same-size-as-mine-should-have-been now change to babies-the-same-age-as-mine-would-have-been? I feel like i'm on uncharted territory. The one good thing is that, from the end of July, I have been feeling better in myself. From around May, my mood had taken a total nosedive. I was bitter, angry, anxious. Although to some extent those feelings still lurk around, I've noticed little things I've started to do that I couldn't do before. I held a baby (!), when I couldn't before even look at one. I started thinking about life with only one child, and whether it really was something to be upset about. I started living my life again and getting involved in outside interests instead of sitting in my house on my own.

I've not made any plans for what I will do on my actual due date, which is 2 weeks tomorrow. Part of me thinks perhaps I need, for my own sanity, to not mark it in any way. To get on with life and forget it, lest I get dragged down again the way I was a couple of months back. This is my greatest fear. But equally it feels wrong to not mark that little life in some way. I'm not sure the date will have any significance for anyone other than me. My DH's way of dealing with things is to just get on with things and not contemplate too much.

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I took my daughter to the library this morning. She usually picks books very haphazardly (often the first ones she finds!). Today she did her usual thing, then picked up another book from a different pile and handed it over to me. It was called 'The Bump', and it was a little tale about where 'she' came from and how her mummy grew to love'her'. Its quite a clever little tale, with the child at the end realising the story is all about them.

It almost feels like the timing couldn't be better. Again, I'm reminded of the blessings I have in having her and how I have the sheer luck in having a healthy child to love and love me back.

It is this that will carry me through what I know is going to be a difficult month.