39 weeks!

... and counting down. My due date is this Saturday, so here is me, last weekend, at 39 weeks.

I'm pretty much living in these Juicy Couture maternity pants. They're low-rise and apparently incredibly stretchy, because they've somehow fit me snugly from start to almost finish of pregnancy. Now that the baby's dropped so low, these are the only kinds of pants I want to wear, super low on my belly.

Anil said today, "It feels like we're in college again," in his case because we're sleeping late and watching too much TV. I , however, do not feel like I'm in college.

I'm trying to stave off feelings of impatience, though, and enjoy the time off. At some point (I think when she dropped so seemingly early, a month ago), I got some feeling of entitlement that I'd go into labor before my due date, so it's made me antsy and impatient. It seems obvious that I should be enjoying this quiet time, for a number of reasons, but when I've been pregnant this long and as the whole unknown of first-time labor and its aftermath looms over me, it can be hard to keep my head on straight. Anil said it's like the days before running a marathon, and that seems right to me. I want to keep my attitude positive but realistic. I've "trained" all I can and will see what my body does with the challenge. There are so many "what ifs," but it's not productive or helpful to think about them (doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to ignore them). I know that sometime soon, I'll have a healthy baby and I won't be pregnant anymore, and that will be a whole new crazy adventure. There are a handful of things that can happen in between, a number of turns that labor can take to get me there, and the recovery varies as well; all of that is pretty nerveracking. But we're close to a "strong finish" no matter what. (That's a shout out to my dad, a phrase we've used since high school... good start, steady in the middle, and a strong finish). I guess that sequence works for labor too, no matter how it goes.