I guess this is nesting

Yesterday I had my last OB visit, which lasted all of thirty seconds. My doctor (who has been kind enough to not molest my cervix once) said See you at the c-section! Woah. And it was totally weird to leave the office without making a new appointment. Also weird is this item on my calendar:

You know, in case it slips my mind.

I'm on target to finish my work-work this week...though I suppose I just jinxed myself by saying that, and now an unexpected shit pile will land on my head. On the home front, I've turned into some kind of sweatshop laborer. A while back Mr. Bunny said something like Gee, it sure is a great time of life for you to be able to sew! But I'm beginning to think it's more of a curse. I've been churning out blankets and burp cloths like a Malaysian ten-year-old, and have even gone so far as to make some diapers. We're going the cloth route, and while Trinity's excellent advice enabled me to amass a sort of...buffet...of delicious options, I also want to see how the plain-old-piece-o'-cloth approach works. (I did a lot of cloth diapering of my much younger brother, so I know what I'm getting into. Maybe. And we have plenty of hippie disposables for the early days, no worries.)

Burp cloths! Don't the jelly fish look kinda like penises?

I suppose some reptilian part of my brain thinks if I just keep sewing, I'll be prepared. But there's no way to be prepared, is there?

Thoughts of DOOOOOOM

I feel like I'm surrounded by death. I found a dead chipmunk in my yard a few days ago, so perfect and sweet, but dead. On my walk to school yesterday, I discovered that two massive old oak trees had been cut down in a yard along my route--trees that I loved for the glorious shade they provided during the more scorching days of summer, and their astonishingly beautiful canopies filled with birds and squirrels. Tomorrow's the two-year anniversary of my father's death, and I got two e-mails today notifying me that someone I know has died. And I keep thinking, when my baby dies during or shortly after birth, these will seem like omens.

I have a feeling that frequent and extremely vivid thoughts of stillbirth and neonatal death are common at this time. And it's not like we don't all know tons of people to whom these things have actually happened. So in addition to revisiting these stories and imaging them happening to me, I consider practical questions like whether I will commit suicide or continue living for my husband. Or if maybe we'll just kill ourselves together? Decisions, decisions.

I know that there is no reason to think Bun Bun won't be okay. All signs (including the four or five elbows poking out of my belly right now) point to a healthy fetus, and a c-section is a pretty safe mode of delivery. I also know that there's no point in becoming hysterically paranoid about the safety of my child, or I'll pretty much never be able to stop. Maybe this is just one of those manifestations of the anxiety that comes when you are about to step through a door into a new world. But...it's also hard to believe that something so wonderful as a real live Bun Bun in my arms could actually happen. So feel free to offer me some reassurance.

Thirty-five year old toes

It's my birthday! (And also Egghunt's, though since she lives in the future, it was yesterday...Happy birthday Egghunt. I know what I will be wishing for you when I blow out my candles. [A pony, of course! Oh shit, now it won't come true! I'll have to come up with something else.])

The contrast between this year and last year is pretty fucking striking.

Last year.

Today.

I'm talking, of course, about the  fact that my garden was so much greener last year. We're having an unseasonably cold spring, which is PISSING ME OFF.

Oh, and then there's the fact that last year I was a week away from a meatballectomy, and this year I'm three weeks away from motherhood. I will go into the same building, and recover one floor above, perhaps even looking out on the same view, but I'll leave, God willing, with a brand new person. One I already love more than anything, and I hear tell that love just gets stronger.

I am filled with gratitude and astonishment. I want this so much for those of you who haven't gotten here yet. And sure, I'm in a position to be magnanimous, I have everything I want. But still, it is my fondest birthday wish that this year will be one filled with joy for all of you.

¡Arriba!

Goodness! Working all day every day sure does cut into my sharing-my-every-precious-thought-and-feeling-with-all-y'all time. But I wanted to share this.

A Cinco de Mayo birthday para el Bun Bun--muy fantástico.

Although...should I trust them with my uterus when they don't know how parentheses work?

Meh.

I think I surprised some of you by announcing I was three weeks from full term. I meant full term as in 37 weeks, which, now that I think of it, is a really misleading expression that I will never use again. I've got six weeks left officially. But that doesn't sound like very long either, does it? Six weeks. Eeep! I promise I really will start working hard next week.

But I can't do it today, as I'm feeling extra in HATE with my career. I submitted a grant proposal that involves a two stage process: submit a short version, be invited to submit a full version. Today I got a voicemail asking whether I intended to submit my full version, due yesterday. Uh...I never received any response to my short version, and certainly didn't get an invitation to submit the full version. So...that's sucky. And I got word that our submission to the Big Conference in my field was accepted as a poster, not an oral presentation, so they can go FUCK themselves. The conference is in July, so it's not like I'd really want to go anyway, but I do feel like evidence that I'm floundering career-wise is beginning to accumulate. And, I learned the partner of Other Best Friend failed to get tenure at his institution. While there may have been good reason, I can no longer pretend that doesn't ever happen to anyone.

THANK GOD for fetal hiccups. I seriously can't get enough of them--they are the sweetest and most endearing thing in the whole universe. While they don't exactly make everything wonderful, at least they remind me how insanely lucky I am. So I'm going to try to shake off these disappointments and focus on my most important task: sending all my good thoughts to Augusta's uterus.