Crunch time. I feel like there is so much to do! Like we need to be doing stuff! There must be stuff to be done! What should we do? WHAT ARE WE DOING?! And yet… everything is done. We played electrician and put in a ceiling fan in the nursery without having to reap the benefits of either of our life insurance policies. I’ve got batteries in our baby gear, and they vibrate and make noises that are apparently appealing to hobbits of the freshly baked variety as promised. I tested out the bottle sterilizer, and it gets as hot as one would assume steam does – so I’m not sure why I didn’t anticipate that. Videos on proper car seat installation have been YouTubed, strollers have been tested, and game plans for D-Day have been reviewed.

And everything is ready. Hospital bag is packed: outfit for the goober, check. Stretchy clothes for my soon to be deflated walrusness, check. Beer, check, check, check.  Everything is ready but our nerves. But our hearts are almost bursting in their readiness to meet this little, hairy, creature of the deep. Emphasis on little, because according to the measurements of my bowling ball, and the calculations from my many ultrasounds, this little oyster is indeed a shrimp. Although babe’s most recent growth assessment did show some awesome weight gain! And emphasis on the hairy, because each picture they snap captures what appears to be glorious locks of hair waving around in the egg yolk of my uterus.

And despite its shrimpiness, little squidward appears to have stockpiled a few dozen chins to keep it company in there. Man hands too. Takes after me. Bebe is head down and tush up, and cervix is ripening up like an old mushy peach – things are looking good!

Baby is way too spoiled already, much to my dismay. Our baby party at the bar was a blast, and despite only registering for a few practical things on Amazon, our friends and family showered us with the cutest, sweetest, most adorable, awwwwwww inducing crap ever, insuring that little bebe will certainly be one of the most well dressed munchkins bopping around the block once they have emerged from the deep. It was so great to see so many of our people out and about in the name of baby at our 2nd home Puddler’s Hall for the party. People ate, and drank, and ate and drank. Which to me, is all I look for in a party. Feeling particularly generous and loving due to the overwhelming emotions one feels when having a few dozen of your nearest and dearest wish you well and gaze lovingly at your pelvis, I even gave away the secret ingredients in my chili recipe to a few who inquired. Although no one seemed that satisfied with my answer of “salt and fat”.

The party was the last big “thing” we had to do before wee one’s arrival, so with that under our belts… we wait. It’s a bizarre state of limbo we are in. On one hand we are up to our usual shenanigans and laziness, enjoying each other’s company while spacing out staring at our respective phones, eating more food than is necessary for people of our daily caloric expenditures, and generally just in love with our life – and on the other hoof, we are anxiously awaiting this yet to be determined moment in history that will forever change us from whatever we are now, to parents of a tiny, living, squirming thing. What will it feel like? What will we be like? How will we change? Thoughts like this keep my mind all atwitter in the dark when I awaken from slumber for my thrice nightly potty breaks. Since I’ve been feeling like a GD boss still we are trying to make the most of our last few weeks being Just Us. Packer games, Badger games, pumpkin farms, trying new restaurants, me having small samples of Lakefront’s new bourbon barrel aged imperial Pumpkin Lager whenever I spot it on tap with my beady little eyes, date nights (aka me stuffing myself like a sow pig), late nights (aka me staying up past 8 pm), sleeping in (aka me laying in bed with minimal fidgeting past 6 am), going to the movies, long walks with the dog, waddling around Bayview to all our favorite haunts, etc. Sometimes I seriously can’t believe we are so close to contraction action… I feel like it was just yesterday we accidentally oopsed this kid into existence. And I heard it just gets worse from now on, and the next thing we know we will be all shriveled up into geriatric versions of ourselves wondering where the time went and also where our glasses went and what our names are.

What is it with people being rude as H-E-Double Hockey Sticks to us about wanting to go into labor without a specific plan about pain control? Why do people even ask me what our plan is if they are going to literally laugh in my face when I tell them we are hoping to try natural and adjust accordingly if I turn into a demon? I am not being naïve, I know this is going to hurt like the devil himself is ripping me apart with fire from coocha to poocha. I’ve seen plenty of births first hand, and I know that this supposed miracle of life often looks more like the set of a horror movie than anything remotely miraculous. And I know that epidurals can help tone down the experience to something slightly less torturous. But I also know that my body was LITERALLY designed to be able to procreate and bring nuggets earth side as an absolutely essential element of the basic survival of humanity, and for hundreds of thousands of years women all over the world have sweated and squatted and screamed and swore they would never get pregnant again as they brought babies into this world without the aid of anything other than faith in something bigger than themselves. I’m not against pain control, I’m not on some hippie dippie crusade to keep the kid away from chemicals and modern science (extra vaccinations, please!), I’m not a martyr, and I’m certainly not a masochist – I think what I am more than anything is curious. I’m curious about what it means to push a watermelon out of a blueberry, and since I have nothing to compare it to, I want to go into my first experience as the one on the other side of the stirrups with an open mind and flexibility. And once it is all said and done and my business has transformed from a neat little package into bloody strips of macerated roast beef, I’ll let you know what my experience was and what I would do differently if we ever decide to take a 9 month hiatus from alcohol again.

Also, it is with a huge sense of accomplishment that I announce: with careful planning and impeccably timed accidental gestation, as of this week, I hereby will not be working another Monday again until February. Praise be.

 

36 weeks! That’s 9 months! 9 months pregnant! And yet we’re not done… I feel tricked. Blame the media! And Obama.

When I told Gates we were pregnant he put this song on, and we’ve listened to it more times than I can count. Guess you could call it our pregnancy anthem. One more month.

 I’ll be patient, one more month
You’ll wrap your fingers round my thumb
Times are changing, I know, but who am I if
I’m the person you become
If I’m still growing up?

PS –

Not to get all sentimental and hormonal, but I would just like to say that I am feeling incredibly fortunate to have been given this opportunity to experience pregnancy, and I am so thankful that I have had a fairly routine, healthy, happy, and even glowing 9 months growing this little beast. We’ve been blessed with the most amazing support system and love from so many great people in our lives, and I am overwhelmed in the abundance of good fortune we’ve been granted so far in our journey becoming parents. The world doesn’t seem to play fair to so many, and it is sometimes hard to not feel incredibly guilty about all that we have, when so many have so little and so many lose so much. I know I tend to be sarcastic and even callous when I talk about life, but I truly am in awe of the miracle that we’ve been slow-roasting for the past 9 months. I do not take any of this for granted, and will forever be thankful that our life was able to travel down this bumpy fork in the road.

Ok, now back to the usual.