Can I just say that these last couple weeks of pregnancy should be classified under Ways to Make an Enemy Speak like Chinese Water Torture? For a type A personality like myself, this is about as cruel and unusual as it gets.

I couldn’t be more done. Over it. Finished. GET HER OUT! And I say that with an air of hesitancy because I don’t want to seem ungrateful. No one, NO ONE, appreciates this pregnancy more than me. I am thankful each and every day for the giant belly, the extra 30 pounds, the stretch marks, the completely irrational crying, heartburn, and every little somersault I feel in my gut. But man I’m done. I think it’s fair to say this wasn’t a “normal” pregnancy. It started all the way back in early July with a six-week fertility-drug roller coaster that turned into pregnancy, that turned into months of unexplainable bleeding, and the fear every day that it would be a fleeting moment and never come to pass.

But here we sit one entire week from our due date and I can hardly believe we’re here. The reality is looming and is unspeakably overwhelming. And I want her out. I want her out because I’m tired of talking about it and planning and thinking, I just want to hold her. I want to get this next chapter started. I’d also like to not cry when my husband holds up cutesy embroidered pillows at Hobby Lobby or I see a red-head in a magazine, or someone looks at me. (All true events.)

So this is the start of week 39. I feel like 38 was a blur. Shelton keeps teasing me for trying desperately to initiate my labor, and it’s all fair. Thankfully the weather is finally nice and we’ve been able to talk a walk every evening, on top of a couple “necessary” trips to Target, Sams, Hobby Lobby and others so that I could literally just wander around. We went to a movie Friday night (Death at a Funeral… hilarious!); I figured we’d watch one more in a theater as they will likely be introducing 9D technology the next time we make it out to one. I hoped the hard belly laughs would break my water. I also hoped that bypassing the slackers waiting on the elevator and climbing the three flights of stairs (then going back down one because we went too far) would start something. But it didn’t.

I did no less than a dozen loads of laundry this weekend. I did dishes. I grocery shopped. I cooked. I cleaned. Nothing.

I keep eyeballing the neighbor’s giant trampoline like a big piece of hot, gooey doughy pizza. They wouldn’t mind if the pregnant stranger hopped on and tried to shake out the baby, would they?

We’ve reached this point – the point of no return and the point of absolute uncertainty as to when she’s going to decide to show up. I take back what I said about flicking her in the bladder (because you know, payback sucks) if she’ll just go ahead and get out already.