As of this writing, I’m 39 weeks pregnant. If little Lucas decides to arrive on time, I could give birth next week!

We’ve got a crib. We have a car seat. We have baby clothes, sterilizers, diapers (cloth AND disposable!), changing mats, towels, blankets.

We took the breastfeeding and newborn care classes. We’ve been going to the doctor regularly. We got all the tests and the ultrasounds. I did the prenatal yoga. I took all the prenatal vitamins. We installed the apps and read the baby books. We did the spring cleaning and rearranged our bedroom, our clothes, our lives.

We read about the sleepless nights and the pain of breastfeeding. We read about postpartum depression and the horrors of diaper changing. We looked up bottle feeding versus cup feeding, and looked at various diaper bags, and co-sleeping versus room-sharing.

So why do I still feel like I’m not ready for this baby?

Is anybody ever ready for a baby? Is anybody ever ready for a whole other human being to enter their lives? For a whole other person to be completely dependent on them?

I don’t think any amount of preparation can prepare you for the reality of it. A whole other life, in our hands. A universe of possibility, a galaxy of decisions, a world of thoughts yet unspoken and adventures yet unlived. How can we be responsible for all of that? The enormity of the task is mind-boggling. How some people can thoughtlessly stumble into parenthood is beyond me.

Sometimes I think, oh God, what have I done? How could I possibly think I was ready for this? I look frantically for the pause button. Sometimes I ask myself, you wanted this, so why are you panicking now? But does anyone ever really know what they’re asking for?

Other times, I think, countless other people have survived this. Lola and Lolo managed to raise seven children in an age without the internet, baby books or apps. Mommy and Daddy did it, and Victor and I turned out (mostly) fine.

Surely we can do this.

We can do this.