37 Weeks

Hey! I’m 37 weeks pregnant! Lady Baby is now full term and needs to vacate the premises, the little mooch.

Ok, fine, stay put if you MUST.

Anyway, I had my weekly check today. Not much to report. Still hanging around, dilated to 4CM and 80% effaced. Which, you know, means nothing and also everything. Basically, I’m not there yet ,but am reminded (YET AGAIN) that when active labor starts, it’s gonna go fast! So don’t wait.

Which sucks. I mean, it is what it is, I know this, but it sucks. Because it means I can’t NOT pay attention when I’m having contractions that I know aren’t THE contractions, because of how quickly they can turn into THE contractions. I have to pay attention. And also? They still do hurt, even if they’re not the active labor ones. They still hurt, they still leave me exhausted and vaguely disappointed because, you know, no baby. (And yes, we had a second fake-out trip to L&D after FIVE HOURS of contractions 2 minutes apart.)

In theory I know that it makes the “real” labor faster and easier for me (well, so I’ve been told), but having a month of this with an unknown amount of time still to go? BAH.

Anyway, that’s my complaining. It’s what I do, these days. That and eat donuts. Which, no offense to Vermont, but your donuts kinda suck. I’ll still eat them, don’t get me wrong. But I miss Donut Corner, yo. (Though, truth time, when it’s negative eleventy million degrees out, I miss EVERYTHING about SoCal. Everything. Even I-15.)

I now have 1.5 outfits I can wear that cover my belly, which means at least once a week we cannot leave the house because I have to wash something.

Xander is being his ridiculous and awesome self and seems very excited to meet his sister. He’s also freaking out a little, I think because of all the up in the airness of it all. But God, he’s just so damn great. Unrelated to my gestating or anything, really, he is this full on PERSON. He tells me stories and plays imaginary games and he has EXPLODED with words. Sentences! Complete ones! He has them. He will come find me in the kitchen, dawdling over a cup of coffee, grab my hand and say in a singsong voice “Hey mama! Come here! I show you something!” And then he shows me the box of stickers he upended in his room. “A real big mess,” he sighs.

I can’t believe I get to have two of these.

What a full term belly looks like. AKA OMG SO HUGE.