Officially 38

Weeks, that is. Every week for the last 9 months, I've gotten the "You're ____ Weeks!" newsletters in my inbox from both my hospital and various other websites. Babycenter.com has this feature where they send you a picture of the size of your baby in terms of a (usually) recognizable fruit or vegetable. I had to laugh at this week's. According to the site, Baby Mia is the size of a leek:

Well! If that's the case, delivery should be a snap! She'll just slide right on out! In their defense, they do clarify on the site that the above correlation refers to her length and not her weight. Her weight and shape is actually more comparable to a 7lb small watermelon or pumpkin.

Realistically, weight and length fluctuate, but she won't grow much more from what she is now. She should be roughly 7 lbs, and 20 inches long. I guess we'll wait and see! At my appointment on Wednesday, the doctor noted that my weight had dropped 2lbs, which is a sign that Baby Mia is just about out of room and has taken up all the space that used to be occupied by fluid. She has developed a strong grasp that will instinctively kick in right after birth. Her lungs are also fully developed and ready to go. Her heartbeat has remained steadily in the 140s for most of the pregnancy. She's also shed most of the lanugo, the hair that has covered her body during gestation, and the greasy white vernix. So what we can expect to see at delivery is a round, pink, ahem...coneheaded...ahem, wailing, baby.

I'm still not feeling anxiety towards the actual birth process. I'm happy with my hospital, and it's only a 20 minute drive from the house. I'm not sure who the midwife on call will be, so I can't be sure who will actually be there for the delivery, but I'm okay with that. The nurses I met in Labor and Delivery were all very sweet. I don't anticipate anything going awry, but if it does, all the appropriate facilities are right there and I know that they can get baby out in 5 minutes, if they have to. I've decided to try to do this without medication, but I'm not ruling it out in the moment, and I know what pain medication options are available and when I can ask for them. So really, my mind is at ease on the birth process. Which will probably last until labor actually starts and I decide that I can't do this after all :p

My anxiety (and thus emotional roller coaster) is over everything else. Stuff that doesn't really matter, but keeps my mind going anyway. Will I be able to wrap up my massive graduate project in time (I'm almost there)? How do you attach the car seat base to the car (I know Kevin could figure this out without me)? Will I be able to get in one more grocery shopping trip so that there's food in the house (The trip has to wait until Tuesday)? When am I going to do one more good top to bottom house cleaning (again, there are other people who could and would jump in to help on this)? And just a general feeling of "What else needs to be done?" I guess I never really saw an endpoint until the doctor announced on Wednesday that Baby Mia had dropped into position. Even if I go a week past my due date and have an induction, she'll be here inside of 3 weeks.

And if you can't tell from the rambling tone of that last paragraph...that suddenly seems really soon.