A melon-choly feeling

I've been so busy recently wishing away the last days of my watermelon status that I didn't even stop to think that losing the bump could be a bittersweet feeling. It may even be the last time I experience this, my one and only preggers period to inform my life. And when you put it like that, its definitely a choke-making thought (to be fair, it doesn't take much right now). This could be the only time I can watch my stomach lurch around a la Alien, feel the vibration of tiny hiccups, or watch myself stretch and change daily in nature's time-honoured, mystical tradition.

I have been in the early stages of pregnancy before (twice in fact) when younger, and that knowledge has definitely tinged this experience with a little sadness for what might have been. If its been this easy as a 35-yr-old, would I have breezed through it aged 17/28? Also, the fierce protectiveness I feel over this little life, which of course will only grow when it bursts into the world, has made me prey to all kinds of random mental scenarios - I have dreamed about being stabbed in the stomach, of tiny lungs collapsing with the strain of breathing solo, of freak fires and floods and abductions....you name the paranoid parental landscape, I've dreamed there. And over and over it confirms how much I already love this little person I don't yet know: how I, and things, will never be the same; and what a huge responsibility this is, and how dependant my future happiness will be on the happiness of my child.

From the second that cord is cut my baby will be an independent being, slowly forming his/her own desires and opinions, and no longer my own little belly prisoner, bringing out the maternal emotions whilst not spoiling any of the innocent, pre-reality fantasies of how I will raise and love my child. What's not to miss?