Sitting here at 40 weeks + 2 days, I’m amazed at how big the world seems. You’d think that my view might be narrowing, that I might be getting more and more focused on this imminent moment and utter transformation. But that’s not what I’m experiencing. As I sit here with my computer propped on a big pillow tucked under my even bigger belly, I’m barely even thinking of the baby, the pregnancy, the journey ahead. It’s a Saturday morning and my mind is skipping off down all its regular rabbit trails. Political reporting, musings on the nature of life and love, and a general sense of the enormous expansiveness of the future and all the possibilities it holds. Before we decided to have this kid, and in the first phases of my pregnancy, I was very worried at the idea that I might lose *me* in all of this. But I no longer fear that will be the case. I’m just as much me, just as quirky and neurotic and full of a rich and beautiful inner life as I’ve always been. Sure, that will shift like the world tilting on its axis. But this is not the end. Nothing will prevent me from being me, no matter how small and darling and needy and frustrating and loved that thing may be.