NEW MOM DIARY VOL. I: CONFESSIONS OF A MOM-TO-BE

By Jackie Weiss

The lady in the crib shop is aghast when she hears my due date. "Six weeks left and you haven't ordered a crib yet?" she asks. "Its too late! It'll never arrive in time!"

Having lived all of my 30-something years as a procrastinator, it is not surprising that I have made it to the final weeks of my pregnancy with many basic preparatory tasks still outstanding. In addition to having no baby furniture picked out, my husband and I still need to move into an apartment with a second bedroom (at least we have found one -- no small task in Manhattan. We'll be moving during my 37th week.) We also need to take an intensive Lamaze class, go for a tour of the hospital where I'll be delivering, and find some time to celebrate our final days of being Married Without Children.

These tasks will be squeezed in around my work as a stock market research analyst at a large Wall Street firm. My intention is to continue working up until I go into labor, unless I become too uncomfortable or unwieldy. I get 13 weeks of paid maternity leave, and prefer to have it with the baby, instead of sitting around by myself waiting for contractions. People tell me I'm misguided, but I'm looking forward to the baby's first three months as a period of relaxation for me.

There may be a lot to do over the next few weeks, but at least the major task is out of the way, which was becoming pregnant in the first place. It was my husband Greg, a few years my junior but much more schedule-oriented, who started suggesting around a year ago that maybe we'd better get a move on in the baby department. We were lucky that we had an easy time conceiving, and I've been fortunate that my pregnancy has been relatively comfortable, with the normal fatigue and achiness more than offset by my delight at how gracious people have been to me. Contrary to what I had heard, New Yorkers do give up their seats on the subway for a pregnant woman. The security guards at work insist that I walk through the gate rather than through the turnstile, and the woman in the cafeteria asks me if I'd like a little extra lo mein.

The negatives are mostly physical. The sweltering New York summer is that much less pleasant when one is lugging an extra 27 pounds around their mid-section and is suddenly hyper-sensitive to smells. I also seem to have lost the ability to sleep through the night. A small crane would come in very handy when I need to roll over in bed, or to hoist myself up for one of my numerous mid-night trips to the bathroom.

And then there's our unborn baby. Neither my husband nor I wanted to find out its sex in advance, but Greg has been so convinced from the beginning we are having a girl, that we have taken to referring to it as "Alice" and calling it a she. I have never had a preference or an instinct about the baby's gender, but I suspect that my husband developed his conviction because he initially wanted a boy and wanted to prepare himself for the possibility of a daughter. (He denies this.) By now, though, since we've discussed Alice and imagined her personality to such an extent, we will probably both be startled if it is a boy.

What we know about Alice so far is that she is feisty. Since month four she has been busy tossing and turning almost constantly, and jabbing her little fists and feet into her mother's belly with some ferocity. She also seems to have a preference for American roots music. Last week we took her to a Gillian Welch concert and she went berserk, dancing throughout the entire show in utero as if she were in a mosh pit. The only other time she responded so ardently to outside stimuli was when we went to see The Last Waltz, the rockumentary about The Band. "Alice won't sit still!" I whispered to Greg during the movie, and he placed his hand on my stomach and grinned, already proud of his unborn child, because she shares his taste in music.

As for the crib... we did manage to order one from the dismayed saleslady, and lo and behold, she has managed to secure one that will be delivered right after the baby is born. Though I'm sure Alice would have escaped permanent damage if she had had to spend her first weeks in a drawer or a box, it will be nice to welcome her home with her very own furniture assembled. It just goes to show, for some things at least, if you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute.

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