When I wrote this post I forgot one detail about pregnancy. I wasn’t even 30 weeks pregnant when I wrote it, and back then I forgot that you reach a point in pregnancy when you’ll do pretty much anything to just be done already…you’ll even endure the most extreme, the unthinkable…you’ll go through labor and delivery.

I’m getting to that point. It’s hot, I’m huge, and I’m ready to meet this baby. I’m 38 weeks today, which means I have two weeks until my due date; and I’m trying to prepare for even longer.

I keep forgetting to ask Tom to take a photo of me, but then I remembered it’s 2013, the era of selfies, and (as of a few weeks ago) I have an iPhone. Internet, I present you my first ever selfie:

David is angry because he saw Chick-fil-A on the way into the bathroom.

I took the photo at Short Pump Mall because my body no longer fits in residential mirrors. Plus, if anything can class up a bathroom selfie it’s if the bathroom is at Short Pump Mall.

That same day, I got an email from BabyCenter.com with a link to the article, “Is it normal that I don’t look pregnant yet?”

I don’t understand contextual advertising or targeted links, and after receiving that link I’m not sure BabyCenter.com does, either.

Besides all the exhaustion, I’m feeling good. That is, if I’m gauging the way I feel on the pregnancy spectrum. As far as pregnancy goes, my pregnancies have been pretty easy. But even easy pregnancy is hard. If I compare how I feel to how a normal non-pregnant person feels, then I would be very concerned.

I am tired, very, very tired. This exhaustion seems worse than the exhaustion I remember from when David was a newborn. This tiredness doesn’t go away no matter how much I sleep, how much caffeine I consume, or how much I complain to my husband.

But when you’re tired from being up all night with a newborn, you can take a nap and feel (reasonably) better. Or maybe I’m just forgetting.

My body feels wrung out, too. This pregnancy seems much more physically demanding than my first. The way my body feels is the way it feels when I’m running a lot and need a rest day; worn out when I wake up and worn out when I go to bed. It’s bizarre to me to think that, when I was pregnant with David, I’d only given up running one week earlier (and it was mid-July).

As worn out as I am, David keeps me moving, and I’m still walking at least three miles a day.

Earlier this week I woke up and both calves and my left tricep were all really sore. That means I was either doing calf raises in my sleep…or…I guess there’s this, too.

Yesterday David and I were watching Elmo together and he reached up and patted my belly. He doesn’t really understand that there’s a baby in my belly. We taught him to call my belly “baby,” but once we told him that he started thinking “baby” was just another word for belly.

The pat wasn’t necessarily affectionate, it could have been his way of saying, “Mommy. This is out of control. You might need to cool off on my animal crackers.”

Wither way, I think he’s going to be a great big brother.

Especially if he’ll just push the baby in the stroller while I follow behind sipping a margarita.

I am still dreading labor, but I’m also trying to not dwell on it. Yesterday I visited a friend who told me that she was more anxious about her second labor as well. After enduring drug-free labor once, you know what’s coming, and what’s coming is sort of scary and a little overwhelming. Her advice was that I should chill out for goodness sake. She said to remember that no matter how difficult it was, I did it once, I can do it again. It’s never smart to toe the starting line wondering if you can make it to the finish.

My plan is to spend the remaining two (three?) weeks of pregnancy focusing on what a blessing it is to be pregnant and to carry this baby as long as it needs me to, and how thankful I am to have a healthy baby and a growing family.

It can be easy to fall into a spirit of complaining during pregnancy. We’re big, unwieldy, uncomfortable. My belly is hanging out below maternity shirts and I’m a walking spectacle, but my goodness does it get any better than this?

*I asked Tom if he understood this play on words and he said he didn’t. But maybe you’re a more discerning reader than Tom?

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