I go to the midwife, cooperatively, once a month right now. I love these midwives, truly, and while my relationships with them feel a little strange at times because I have a semi-professional relationship with them, an almost personal friendship with them, and I'm also their patient, I wouldn't transfer my care for the world.

But still, basically, when it comes down to it, I don't like going.

I don't like going in, and having to talk about this. I just want to slip under the radar, the lady with the strangely swollen abdomen, and just be admitted every few weeks for ultrasound monitoring and non stress tests towards the end. I don't want to sit and talk.

Do you have any questions? Is there anything we can do for you?

Save the baby, I want to say. Figure this out, and save the baby.

I have done this so many times before. I don't have any questions about pregnancy and birth. I am pregnant, and I will be until I deliver. When I deliver, the labor will play out as it plays out, and I will endure what occurs and at the end, regardless of circumstance, there will be a baby. I will take what comes. But there isn't a question about this that somebody could answer until the day it's happening.

The whole idea of being at an appointment feels different. I don't bring my husband to appointments, we don't look forward to hearing the heartbeat together in anxious, joyful anticipation of our baby's birth. Likewise, we aren't gathered around, white knuckled, with the sole focus being whether or not this will work out. Instead, we stumble around, distracted and incredibly busy with the hands-on work of parenting three small children, and we have adopted the total and complete avoidance strategy. I'm 26 weeks pregnant and we have almost not talked about names AT ALL. Like perhaps the topic has come up maybe less than five times at a time when most people have pored over books and tossed around hundreds of ideas.

But do I love this little baby?

Oh, I do, I do. It's just how I'm getting through this time. And us moms like me, we just do what we do, and I've learned through time not to question how I'm enduring any particular stress. I just see what's happening, and I accept it. My strange, slightly awkward avoidance strategy this time might make me feel a little guilty for now, but I also know with complete clarity and certainty that when this baby is born he or she will instantly become an equal to the four who came before.

Perhaps that is the only sure thing right now.