38 and a half weeks. That smile? FAKE.

We're at 38+ weeks now, with less than two weeks to go until our due date on November 10.

In related amazing news, my doctor is going away to Australia and China for the next two weeks, and the doctor she referred me to is also going to be away from November 2-8, so if the baby is born between those dates, I guess we'll just have a taxi driver or Sobeys cashier or a Starbucks barista deliver him or her, since ALL OF THE DOCTORS ARE GONE!! NO BIG DEAL!!

I haven't been experiencing the "ZOMG get this baby out of me now" feelings that many moms-to-be report having. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I'm absolutely petrified of labour and delivery and am having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I will actually be participating in this act in less than a fortnight (I have always wanted to throw out a gratuitous use of the word "fortnight", so I can now cross that off my life list.) I cannot and will not accept the fact that I'm about to have a baby. Does. Not. Compute. It just doesn't feel like it's happening to me. Even typing the words "I am going to give birth within the next two weeks" or saying it out loud doesn't make sense. It's like I'm typing "I am a polar bear". I understand what it means, but it doesn't apply to me.

As far-fetched as it sounds, I've kind of put the actual birthing out of my mind for the past nine months, like, "oh, that's something that happens to other women" and skipped off to watch Gossip Girl and eat Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches, assuming that science would come up with a better way to get a baby out of its mother's body by the time when my turn rolled around since everything else was going so swimmingly. Well, thanks for nothing, David Suzuki.  

I've known that the baby is coming - I just haven't given any thought as to how it's going to get here. And now it's like: whoa. You want me to push what through where? Wait, what? Did I agree to this? Was I on drugs? Can I change my mind? I feel like I've been tricked.

Now that it's roughly 10-ish days, max, until I'm actually going to expel a human being from my hidey-hole, shit is getting super real. I've been doing things like sitting with my legs tightly crossed and elevated so that gravity keeps the baby from trying to make tracks for the escape hatch. Seriously. Because that's a legitimate way to prevent birth from happening.

Fear: I haz it. I have never been so scared in my entire life.

Let's all join hands and pray that the drugs work. And that the Starbucks baristas are skilled at administering epidurals. Amen!