After three weeks of email and telephone conversations during which I understood about ten percent (generous estimate, counting things like "buon giorno") of what was being said and, in passing, learned the Italian phrase for the equivalent of a US social security number ("codice fiscale"), today we got the rental agreement contract. We are officially renting the rustic farmhouse of our Italian dreams.

I am so excited that I actually feel sick. This is, however, a good omen (despite the very real possibility of vomit.) The most amazing things I've ever done in my life -- give birth to my children, touch down in an airplane on Rarotonga, marry Jonathan -- have all been immediately preceded by this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach (the result, obviously, of my own chicken-hearted cowardice and fear.)

The night before Aiden was born, the first contractions woke me up a little after midnight. I lay there in bed by myself, timing them by the light of the clock-radio and saying goodbye to my life as it had been. I kept thinking, "This is the last night I will spend by myself for who knows how long?" Then I started throwing up.

I puked my way through the next eleven hours until he was born. It is pretty safe to say that I am not at my most attractive (or fragrant) during these big life-transition moments.

But these things that have terrified me have all, in the end, been worth it -- all, in the end, the best experiences of my life. I have learned the truth of that over the years. But it doesn't change the fact that I need a nice cup of ginger tea and perhaps a cool compress on my forehead right now.