I’m 31 weeks pregnant today. For a while, whenever I’d begin to get a let’s get nesting, I’m not ready anxious-thought spiral, I was able to console myself with “Oh, sweetie, you’re not even in the third trimester yet!”
Now, we’ve been here a few weeks. Something about 30 weeks seemed to ignite an inner final countdown. Something about 31 made my brain decide to get this thing going, to mark my anticipation with action.
So, today, I washed your first-ever load of laundry. Hand me downs and brand new tutu frilly gowns. Impossibly tiny socks and matching mittens. Bow headbands for your hair. Winnie the Pooh matching sets so your nursery could accentuate you.
As I flipped sleepers inside out, I noticed how monstrously massive my fist seemed in the arms of your newborn-sized garments. In some ways, I realized I still couldn’t imagine you. A real baby. In these outfits. Here. In my arms.
I did my due diligence this load, reading tags and sorting by color and temperature and planning to actually “wash separately,” like I so rarely do these days for my own clothes or your daddy’s or your brother’s.
But you see, little lady, this load of your laundry was special. It marked the moment you joined us, in some way. Joined our Sunday chore cycles. Sat evidenced in our laundry baskets. Took up space and time and detergent here with us.
It’s funny how I’ve done all this before, little love. Your brother is three, so you’d think I’d be able to wrap my mind around how the pregnant belly and the baby showers and the OB/GYN appointments will all someday result in you. How those infant feet in impossibly small socks will someday grow, taking first steps across playpen floors. How one day the kicks in my womb will be you in your room showing me all you can do with a “Mom, watch this!” How the little head kept warm with these hats would soon house thoughts and questions and endless whys.
But somehow, it doesn’t all come together for me that way. Instead, it is just surreal. I know your name. I dump your laundry in the wash. I purchase a mattress for your crib. And yet, I can’t yet fully know you. I can’t yet attach the ultrasound photos to the real person you’ll be.
Maybe that’s why this load of laundry struck me so deeply today. I could tangibly hold something that would tangibly touch you. I could feel your body moving inside mine as I sat cross-legged on your nursery floor. I began to imagine meeting you, knowing you, and growing you outside me.
I washed them on the delicate cycle. I don’t know if that was needed, sweet girl, but something about the moment demanded my softest touch, my most present mind, and my gentlest cycle. I poured free and clear detergent to the highest mark, even though the clothes were so small and probably would’ve been thoroughly clean with half the amount. I tried to free and clear my mind of all my worries and just be fully in the moment. I ran a double rinse, just to be thorough.
Someday soon, my mind will be weary, my thoughts will be tired, and my choices at the washing machine will be for efficiency alone. Today, I took the extra care and time to give you your moment, my sweet baby girl. You deserve it.
I hope I never lose sight of how special it is to have baskets full of ever-growing clothes to remind me I have been blessed with you. When inevitably I inside out your sports or band uniforms or dance or gymnastics leotards in your teenage years, and my fist fits right through arm sockets because you’ll be a fully formed young lady, I hope I remember this load I ran today. By then, I won’t have to imagine you at all. I’ll know your every fiber like every thread of these onesies.
Maybe I’ll run a second rinse or fill the detergent to the brim or use the delicate cycle on that someday too. Just for old times’ sake. Just because I get the privilege even still of doing it for you. For you, my baby girl.
