But just before the birth again, there is this. A quiet room in Japan. A full belly. A heart that is breaking and healing in the same beat.
Tomorrow, I will walk to the 7-Eleven ( konbini ) for the last time as a mother of one. I will buy the tonkotsu ramen in a cup that I am not supposed to crave. I will buy a kakigori (shaved ice) because the heat is biblical. I will stand in the fluorescent light, my belly brushing against the magazine rack, and I will feel utterly anonymous and utterly seen at the same time.
In a few days, I will no longer be pregnant. I will be a mother of two. The house will smell of formula and laundry detergent. The toddler will have a meltdown. The baby will cry.
Mata ne. (See you soon.)
I am no longer a tourist in this country, nor am I a seasoned local. I am something in between: a mother waiting for a second child to arrive. The cherry blossoms have long since fallen. The rainy season came and went. Now, it is the dog days of summer, and the cicadas ( minminzemi ) are screaming their death song. It feels appropriate. Something old is about to end. Something new is about to scream.
But this time? Just before the birth again, there is no sprint.
I also know that my toddler will be waiting at home. He will be eating okonomiyaki with his grandmother. He will look up when I walk through the door and say, “ Okaeri ” (Welcome home) before he even looks at the baby. Just before the birth again- Japan- Pregnant- U...
That is Japan’s gift to the pregnant woman: Anonymity. No one stares. No one touches your belly. No one asks invasive questions. They simply bow, step aside, and give you the priority seat on the train. There is a gentle, unspoken respect for the burden you carry.
But this time, I know something I didn’t know then. I know that the pain ends. I know that the baby comes. I know that the moment they place that wet, furious, perfect creature on your chest, the world snaps back into focus.
Soon, there will be chaos. There will be the midnight taxi ride to the hospital. There will be the sterile smell of the delivery room. There will be the primal roar that surprises even me. But just for this moment, there is silence. But just before the birth again, there is this
If you are reading this from a coffee shop in London, or a living room in New York, or a similar apartment in Osaka—take a breath. The waiting is the labor, too. The waiting is the work.
I am sitting on the floor of our apartment. The zabuton cushion is flat beneath me. The kettle is humming a low, wet note. Outside, a neighbor’s wind chime ( furin ) clinks in the humid August air. And inside me, a second life is doing the strange, quiet calculus of deciding when to enter the world.