41 weeks

Let's hope this is the last weekly email, shall we?

*The baby is now ... Who knows. My books and emails have all abandoned me. Instead of the usual weekly pregnancy email I look forward to, this week's email was all about my "week-old newborn." Ooooooh, burn.

*How I'm feeling: Get. This. Baby. Out.

*Physical differences from last week: More contractions of all kinds. More discomfort. Less sleep.

*What's been on my mind: Lately I've been trying to decide when to stop working. I've said all along that I plan to work up until the bitter end or until I can't take the discomfort sitting at my desk for 8.5 hours - whichever comes first. Well, I've officially hit my limit. My (false? real? mostly likely false...) contractions started becoming more painful on Saturday. Combine that with my inability to sleep (if I'm not awake in pain/discomfort, I'm dreaming that I'm finally having real contractions), and I decided this morning that I've had enough. I won't be returning to work tomorrow. I just can't imagine sitting there, in constant on-again-off-again pain and answering the incessant "No BABY yet? No twinges, nothing?!? What does your doctor say??!" all day long.

*What I'm looking forward to: The ability to put pants on without grunting. The ability to roll over without grunting. Get in a car without grunting. Get out of a car without grunting.

Oh, and SEEING MY LITTLE GUY'S CUTE LITTLE FACE! I want to see him so badly, it's almost a physical ache at this point.

*Other random thoughts: I don't think I'm quite as cranky as I'm probably coming off in this post. I think after answering these questions for so many weeks, it's just impossible to answer them without being snarky at this point. ;) The good news is, we have another appointment tomorrow morning, and this is a big one so Mike is coming along for the ride. They'll do the first non-stress test to see how the Rhino is doing. If he's ok, he'll stay where he's at and we'll talk about how long to leave him there before forcibly evicting him. If there are any indications that he could soon be in distress, they'll schedule an induction. In all likelihood, he's fine, so we'll probably just get a weight estimate, do another check to see whether I'm progressing at all (and I have good reason to believe that I HAVE made some progress this week, so I'm feeling hopeful about this), and then talk about how long we'll all let this go on. If nothing else, I'll be happy to have some sort of hard information and hopefully even a deadline for when I can say this pregnancy will definitely be over.

If nothing else, the knowledge that I don't have to go to work tomorrow has me much less frustrated and dreading the final week less than I would be otherwise. I will hide out at home, where at least Belle doesn't look at me like I'm crazy for still walking around with a baby inside of me.