Good morning, world.  

   We are quickly approaching the home stretch here at 38 weeks (minus two days).  Which is exactly the kind of pregnancy talk I would have completely ridiculed before I had any kids.  "Why don't they just say 8 months pregnant?  They're getting so close why does it even matter how many days/weeks it is?  After being pregnant that long, do a few more weeks even make a difference??" 

All I can say to that theory is......YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

   First of all, I don't mean to be insensitive if you are struggling with infertility or longing to be pregnant.  That is not, and would never be, my intent at all.  I only wish to shed a little light on these last days/weeks of pregnancy, which some blissfully tend to sugar-coat in their intent to "count it all joy".  And hopefully, you realize that it is all very tongue-in-cheek.

   In reference to the previous statements, we count the days because yes, EVERY DAY MATTERS.  Just like you count the days when you're battling a migraine or the flu.  3 days feels like absolute eternity, and you wouldn't just say, "Oh, I've felt sick for a while".  And so yes, we count and it matters.

   Being pregnant in the home stretch wouldn't be so bad if you could just sit around all day every day and do nothing.  And after the fact, I always wonder why I didn't just do that very thing more often, because after all, when in life do you have more of an excuse/reason to sit around and do nothing than when you literally almost can't even reach your toes and you involuntarily waddle when you walk?  

But that's not the way it works.

   The last 5+ weeks of pregnancy are also the time that everything in your brain screams "THE BABY IS COMING SOON.  DO ALL OF THE PROJECTS.  DO ALL OF THE CLEANING.  DO ALL OF THE THINGS, ALL DAY, EVERYDAY."  You know that feeling in the evening when you just can't quite fully relax until the dishes are clean and the kids are in bed?  O.k., now take that feeling and multiply it by 100x, and imagine feeling that feeling all of the time.  

I can't relax until the baby's room is painted.
The girls' room organized.
The furniture rearranged.
The walls decorated.
The spring cleaning done.
The laundry caught up.
The car clean, inside and out.
The freezer meals cooked.
The strawberries preserved.
The baby clothes washed.
The library books returned and exorbitant fees paid.
The hospital bag packed.

   And the list goes on and on.  As soon as I cross a few things off, 5 more crop up to replace it.  The to-do list never really shrinks with all my efforts, it just sort of maintains.   And since, of course as far as cleaning and laundry go, things never really STAY that way, it results in an endless whirlwind of activity during the last few weeks when you feel the biggest, sorest, and worst you can possibly feel.  Sounds like a dream, huh?

   And so over the past weeks I have been painting and cleaning and organizing and laundry and scrubbing our bathroom within an inch of its life, all the while reaching the end of the day feeling like a sore, beached whale whose most valiant efforts still would not be able to achieve painting one's toenails.  

    And the guilt?  Oh the guilt trips!  You sincerely just want to crawl in bed and hibernate until the baby comes but the internet is telling you to drink more green smoothies and red raspberry tea and do squats and kegels and exercise and prepare for labor a do approximately 1,000 other things that make you feel at any given moment like you're just being a failure of a pregnant woman.

   And all this of course, goes without even mentioning the basic care and maintenance of a home, husband and two toddlers.  And while this baby is certainly growing on calcium and folic acid I feel certain he must also be feasting on all my creative juices.  I haven't felt one SPECK of energy left over for this blog, or for writing.  This space has suffered, and I have felt powerless to do anything about that.  So I'm afraid that is just the way it is going to be for a while.

   But lest you feel like all I'm doing is complaining, let me just pause and GIVE A HUGE THANKS to some dear people who have made these last weeks more endurable.  Thanks to my dear sis-in-law Jessi, who shocked me by throwing a darling baby shower, thanks to so many friends have given such darling little gifts for our son and some freezer meals too, and thanks to everyone near or far who has encouraged me with comments or messages or texts that helps me feel not so very, utterly alone in it all.   I am SO GRATEFUL for you, and you truly cannot even know how much it has meant to me to have your support during this time. 


YOU are what make up community.
YOU are what make up "my village".
YOU are what help me remember that I can do this, it won't kill me, I can make it.

Blessings to you.