English Hothouse Cucumber

Today is 26 weeks. That's half a year. I've been pregnant for 6 months. On the produce comparison front: I'm pretty happy with the English hothouse cucumber comparison. It has some length to it, but it's also skinny and smooth. Not to get too graphic or anything, but I looked ahead at the produce comparisons that I get to look forward to over the remaining 3 months, and this is pretty much the last one that doesn't make me wince at the thought of giving birth to it. I could imagine giving birth to something shaped like a cucumber, and I could even imagine doing it naturally. But 7 weeks from now, I'm going to be far less cheerful when I inform you all that Barack is being compared to a pineapple. (Who the hell thought that comparison was a good idea?!). That one's gonna haunt me until I'm safely past the pineapple stage and on to week 34.

Related random note: somebody found my blog this week by googling "what size is a rutabaga?" I'm guessing my page isn't what they had in mind, especially since I don't know either.

A few things of note:

The "days remaining until due date" count has dropped below 100, into the double (rather than triple) digits.

I completed what was hopefully my last big round of blood tests this past weekend, including the same glucose screening that I passed in week 8. Not to be overly pessimistic or anything, but is it bad that I've been telling everyone that they're giving me a second chance to fail it? I should get the results within the week. I'm guiltily eating ice cream in the meantime, convinced it's the last ice cream I'll be allowed to eat until after I deliver. (And yes, I'm fully aware that if I really do have gestational diabetes, it's no better for me to be eating ice cream this week than it will be to eat it next week. Bite me.)

My hair has become so ridiculously thick that my favorite barrette (and by "favorite," I mean "the only one I ever wear") no longer stays closed. I knew that pregnancy would make me too big for my jeans, and it's not terribly shocking to outgrow a bra. But seriously -- who has to shop for a maternity barrette?

Finally, some musings on "What does maternity leave mean to you?" (This is a bit roundabout, but bear with me.) A few weeks ago, I got into a discussion with my advisor and lab mates about Hollywood depictions of artificial intelligence. We're an AI lab, so this was a very detailed discussion. Artificial intelligence in movies is often evil ("2001"), often insidious ("The Matrix"), occasionally just misguided ("War Games"). Some of the movies are very well done (I do have a soft spot for "War Games," and it's not just because the young Matthew Broderick was just so darn cute), some totally suck ("Stealth"), and some try so hard to stretch the genre that you can't help but laugh ("Electric Dreams"). In this discussion, it came to my attention that I was the only one in the group who was watching "Battlestar Galactica" (BSG). I convinced them that it's awesome, they really should see it, and invited everyone over to my house to watch the miniseries that kicked off the show. (Note to self: I started it, so everything that follows is really my fault.) Bottom line: my advisor is now totally hooked on BSG. He keeps inviting the entire lab over to his house to watch more episodes. He sends me emails about the show. When he walks into my office, 9 times out of 10 it is to discuss BSG -- it's never about my research. And he's on a mission to get through all 4 seasons of episodes before I go into labor. It's ... odd. No?

When I informed him that there are a LOT of episodes, and we probably can't finish them all in the next 14 weeks, he responded, "So, when you have the baby, we'll take that week off." And I don't think he was kidding. I'm worried that the "You'll be back in the lab in one week" attitude isn't limited to cheesy sci fi viewing, and will extend to actual work. Time to have another discussion with him about what "maternity leave" really means?