38 weeks...

I am 38 weeks preggo as of yesterday and am feeling every minute of it. I now understand why I've heard so many of the pregnant women on my message board start to say, "ok, baby can come ANY DAY it wants, now," after they hit the 38 week mark. There is something about being full term that really puts the desire to get the baby out in your blood.

The first thing that makes my urgency set in is the change in mobility. Especially in the past few weeks, I am feeling so exhausted and immobile. Getting in and out of bed is a chore, all of my joints ache, I am experiencing a lot of pain in my lower abdominals from how low the baby is now and I can't seem to do anything to contribute to the order of our household anymore. I can't do dishes for more than ten minutes without bad back pain, I can't pick up clutter off the floor. I just feel useless. It feels like the only thing I can do is laundry, which I am doing in mass amounts. But even walking around the neighborhood for more than ten minutes makes me tired, grumpy, pained and knocks my self esteem down. And forget dancing. Even yoga is tough at this point, when I work up the esteem to even try. It's depressing.

I'm so lucky that I'm married to an awesome person who helps me out with everything, but sometimes that makes it worse. I feel bad even complaining about my life since he waits on me like a princess lately, doing almost all of the chores and still telling me how pretty I am all the time- and meaning it. Seriously, I won at this life partnter thing. He's hot, he's funny AND he takes on all the domestic duties without guilt tripping me when I'm too big to do anything...

I did accomplish one big thing yesterday, though. I went to the Renaissance Festival yesterday and was able to make it until about 4 p.m. or so! Sure, we had to sit for a bunch of shows and I had to take a lot of breaks, but I made it. And I tried to keep myself in good spirits, in spite of myself. It was so beautiful out, with the fall colors changing and the smell of fall in the air. And it was great to walk around with Tim and amuse ourselves with looking at all the little girls and wondering what our daughter will be like- Will she want to dress up like that little princess over there? Will she be more of a tomboy like that little girl with the sword? Will she be gregarious or shy? Who will she like better, me or Tim? It was also awesome imagining bringing her with us to fest next year and buying he silly baby moccasins.

The other thing that makes me want this baby out is the excitement of seeing her. She's so big right now that when she moves I can see everything, it's like rolling waves in my tummy. It's the coolest thing ever, but it also makes me want to see her so darned badly! I want to know exactly what her face looks like, how big those hands and feet that keep pummeling me are, if her butt is really as big as it feels when she leans on me... it's just so cool. I look around her room, put away her clothes and just keep waiting for her to be here. It's like you have this whole picture that's only waiting for one last element and you can't wait for th eissing piece to be there. Sigh, the anticipation.

So, these things combined make me ready for her to get here. I think the next few weeks will be unbearable.