birth day... birthday?

Ten days to go. Ten short days until my due date, which just so happens to be my 32nd birthday as well. The odds of actually delivering on your due date are so incredibly low, but it seems to be all that's on my mind these days. What if? What if I do in fact celebrate the beginning of my 33rd year on this planet by pushing an entire human being through a very small hole in my body?

You see, my birthday has always been a sacred day to me-- probably more so than the average adult, I'm not ashamed to admit. I love holidays. I especially love holidays that involve food- Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, you get the picture. I adore the fall for the sheer fact that egg nog can be found nestled next to the milk and cream in the grocery store fridge section. Sleep-inducing turkey, fuji-apple and sausage stuffing, and mashed potatoes make my thankful list every November. Candy- need I say anything about candy?! And then there's cake- the world's best dessert. And on your birthday, the cake is especially for you. Yes, you have to share it with others, but the thought is- it's the birthday person's cake. So there's the food thing going for making my birthday a fantastic day, and it's also a day that the focus gets to be on me. Doesn't that sound terribly selfish? But hear me out. I don't consider myself a selfish person- not more than the average Joe, I guess. That being said, I do enjoy one day a year that people take a moment to think of me in a special way, to go out of their way to send me a card or an email or call me up just to say, "Hey, hope you're having a good day." That's the specialness of a birthday. One day a year, it's simply MY day.

So, what if? What if C decides to join our wacky family on November 7th? First, this would give me the impression that perhaps I will have for once given birth to a not-so-stubborn child, but that would most likely be disproved within a day or two. But I am actually saying that even as a full-grown adult, a mother, a wife, a responsible citizen, I don't want to share. I don't want to concede my one-day-a-year to someone else. I know that I will concede many, many a thing to this child- my time, my personal life (ha!), my non-gray hairs, any perkiness that may be left in my breasts, my sanity- and I will do so freely and willingly. But MY birthday? Hmmm...

I know this sounds crazy. I know that if someone who didn't know me from Adam stumbled upon this post, she'd probably sit at her computer and shake her head at the horribly selfish mom with her misplaced priorities. I know, I know. You could look at it this way, though- it takes a strong person to actually put her terrible thoughts out there for public scrutiny. So there it is- I am a grown woman who desperately wants to keep her birthday to herself. I don't want to share! Scrutinize away.