Leek

Here we are at 38 weeks. Anywhere from 0 to 4 weeks left. Know how far dilated I am? Zip. Nada. Not a bit. I'm also not at all effaced. It took Dr. M several tries to find Barack's heartbeat today because he was looking waaay too low; turns out Barack is still happily swimming somewhere up around my throat. You getting the feeling that this kid isn't planning to make an appearance anytime soon? Dr. M mentioned that he's on call all day Saturday, and he ended the appointment by saying, "So maybe I'll see you then!" I snorted with laughter, at which point he grinned and said, "Yeah, okay, probably not. I'll see you at next week's appointment instead." Stranger things have happened -- apparently women go from "not even close" to "holy crap active labor!" in short order all the time. I just don't see it happening for me.

My last day of work was on Friday, so I am now officially on maternity leave (woo hoo!). I am now deep in organizing and cleaning mode. Last minute errands. Trying to rest. Trying to do some fun stuff like movies and reading and lunches with friends while I still have the flexibility to do them easily. That sort of stuff. I have also been able to make some progress on my to-do lists, knocking off a whole bunch of stuff yesterday. The house is actually in pretty good shape. S and I have made it a mission to go to sleep each night with the house in a presentable condition, in case we need to leave unexpectedly. It's working really well so far. As of last night, when we hung some pictures and put away our initial supply of cloth diapers, I feel comfortable saying for the first time: the nursery is ready. There are definitely still things on my to-do list that I'd like to get done before Barack makes his arrival, but they're things like "get oil change for car," not "buy essential item for baby" or "learn about that whole labor thing," so I think we're good.

We have a baby pool among family and friends (for a few bucks, guess Barack's arrival date and time, and maybe win fabulous cash prizes!). The earliest entry in the pool (from S's mom) was yesterday. She emailed me in the morning to encourage me to go out jogging or something to induce labor. Instead, we continue to wait. Lots of other people have weighed in on when they would prefer we have the baby as well. My mom, a teacher, has an opinion relative to the upcoming start of her school year. My brother would prefer sometime this week, so that his visit would coincide with his favorite baseball team playing a series in our city. My dad has asked that we wait until the end of the week, so that he doesn't have to reschedule a contractor doing some work on the house. Everybody has an opinion.

S and I had a totally pointless conversation last night about when WE think it would be ideal for me to go into labor. Leaving aside that our opinion matters not at all, coming up with a hypothetical date is a delicate balancing act. On one hand, we want to have time to finish the few remaining things that we really want to get done, and take into account which events scheduled in the next few weeks we do or do not want to miss. On the other hand, I am growing increasingly uncomfortable day by day, so neither one of us wants to extend this thing indefinitely. We decided on Friday. Friday would be fine. Hear that, Barack? Friday works well for us. So maybe try swimming downwards a bit one of these days.