double dose of reality with double digits

So it begins.

Yesterday, we surpassed 100 days until Natalie time and are now 98 (or less!) days away. Hitting the double digit mark last year during all the busy planning for our wedding day is still fresh in my mind. I experienced a combination of emotions -- excitement that the big day was inching closer and a nice dose of freaking out at how little time we had left to plan. Once we made it to double digits, the wedding day arrived in what seemed like hours instead of days.

Those same emotions are coming back -- only this time, it involves a tiny human, completely and utterly dependent on me and her father for survival. Whoa.  One morning this week while still in bed, when it hit me that our days of just the two of us are numbered, I looked wide-eyed at Matt and said, "I don't know anything about babies!" He smiled back at me and nonchalantly said, "Welcome to motherhood."

And here we are, 98 days until Natalie is due to be here, and the clock is ticking. We are diligently working on her nursery and preparing as best as we can to be parents. And yet, I would assume like all mothers-to-be, I wonder how on earth I will manage to conquer this thing called motherhood that generation after generation before me made it through. As my belly grows, and I wonder whether that tiny thing doing construction inside of me really is a baby and not an alien, I still struggle to grasp reality. I will soon be a mother. I will boldly go where woman after woman has gone before. [Can you tell we have been watching Star Trek?] And though I will fail miserably here and there throughout this journey, I hope and pray that I can some day look back on the experience and realize I gave it my best for my sweet child.