Home Stretch

At an OB appointment in our earlier weeks, I remember watching two women, clearly well into their third trimester, waddle into the office. They had frowns on their faces. They couldn't sit up straight. They looked exhausted. And so, so uncomfortable. I gulped. This is what is inevitably coming.

A coworker of mine is due in the next week or two. When I saw her in the office not too long ago, she was telling me about just how ready she was to have this baby. When she stood up, she hunched over holding her back from nerve pain, and couldn't stand up straight for a minute or two. This is what is inevitably coming.

"Do you notice," I asked Micheal one day as we sat in that OB office, "that no woman in her thrid trimester has a smile on her face? They look miserable!" Michael nodded, probably thinking, too, that this is what is inevitably coming.

I'm there. On Wednesday, we will have just 5 weeks to go. And yes, my back is killing me at the end of the day. When I try to recline, my sciatic nerve is pinching. My baby loves to curl up his 5- pound self centered right on my bladder, and on some other location in there I can't quite identify. I can't reach my toes. I am sitting like a guy, knees falling to the side to accommodate for my gut. My toes are so swollen at the end of the day that I can feel the skin tighten and throb around my toeneails.

I am slowing down. Today Michael and I went to bask in the sunshine at Lifetime's outdoor pool. As we walked towards the pool chairs, Michael actually had to tell me to keep walking. Without realizing it, I had slowed my pace to a near-halt. I picked up the pace, for another 20 feet or so, then slowed to near-stop again. I was like a wind-up toy at the end of its run.

One question I often get is if I am going to work up until the baby comes. This question worries me. I would like to save all of the PTO I can to use when the baby is here, not sitting around waiting for something to happen. But it occurs to me then that maybe I won't be able to physically do it up until the last day. Day by day I will get bigger and less able to accommodate physical demands like, well, walking.

Overall though, I must admit that I feel pretty darn good for being 8 1/2 months pregnant. It's crazy that we're this far along. And at the end of the day, there may be some groans and complaints, but being this pregnant it isn't as miserable as I calculated it would be. Maybe because it's balanced by the sheer excitement and anticipation of our little guy's arrival, which is inevitably coming.