and so it goes

35 weeks, 5 days.

4 weeks, 2 days to go until the due date. Actual baby arrival? Who knows.

I am entering a new phase. I think of it as, "grateful yet cranky." I've actually been fairly surprised at how non-overly-emotional I've been over the past eight months (really, I am not making this up) - but that's come to a crashing halt. I enter into evidence last night's meeting, which was a little frustrating and would have, under normal circumstances, cost me about five minutes of venting in the car on the way home - but which, instead, caused me to drive home crying, arrive home and try to explain to my husband why I was crying, assuring him that it wasn't really that big of a deal in spite of my sobbing, and then go to bed exhausted by my own emotional reaction.

Also, I watched Steel Magnolias yesterday afternoon. Maybe not the best choice.

It's been unseasonably warm and humid here lately, which hasn't helped. And I've been working a lot of evenings, which are not my best time. It will get better, starting this week, but I'm tired.

I think about all the times I saw a pregnant woman who looked tired and heavy and just done with it all, and how I wanted to rush up to her and say, "don't you know how lucky you are? Don't you know how much I want to be you?" I wasn't wrong, then. I did want this, more than anything in the world. And I do remember that, even on the days when October 28th seems like an eternity away.

But there's a reason your body starts to rebel at the end of pregnancy; you've got to be motivated to get this kid OUT OUT OUT, and even the deepest gratitude for being pregnant doesn't mean you want to stay that way forever.

Several years ago, I found this poem based on the biblical story of Jonah. I used to read it when I was in the two-week-wait, being tortured by visions of home pregnancy tests. This wait is very different. But the poem still works. (And not just because I look like a whale.)

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke
signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each
way for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports.
Review each of your life's ten million choices. Endure
moments of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those
before you. Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for
the sound of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound
of your heart.
Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your
toes pointing again and again down, down into the black
depths.

Dan Albergotti

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait. A good mantra for the next month.