I've been slack blog-wise lately - it's not that I don't have anything to say, it's more that I'm lacking the time and/or attention span to put a proper post together. I have at least a dozen posts started and abandoned over the past two weeks.

We've been BUSY. On top of the usual working-full-time-with-a-toddler-and-obnoxious-dog routine lots of other stuff has been happening, which I'll delve more into later (not pregnant, still married, not moving away - just to clear up the three obvious conclusions.)

But April whizzed by at breakneck speed, starting with Easter, throw in a few birthdays, including my own, plus some other excitement, and yeah. Here we are.

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!

30 weeks - 31 in one day!

Here's our (very blurry) 30-week picture - 30 weeks and six days, to be exact. We had our monthly checkup yesterday morning - the last of our monthly checkups. They're now switching to every two weeks. So far, all is well in babyland. The baby weighs about three pounds and its head is facing down, its bum is on the right, and footies are on the left. I had thought the bum-bump was its head, so I feel a little bit better now because I've been feeling bad about sleeping on my right side, worrying that I've been putting the poor little thing on its head for hours, soo this comes as a relief.

Physically I feel great and I have no complaints at all. Emotionally I'm a bit of a wreck. We have two months to go. TWO MONTHS. Cycle 17 of America's Next Top Model will still be on and we'll have a baby. I have purchased dairy products with expiry dates that are after my due date. I could be drinking the same coffee creamer I had for breakfast today when I'm a mother, and I won't even get food poisoning. This is not OK. I've never been so excited yet scared for anything, ever.

Staying asleep is starting to become a bit of a thing, in that it never happens for more than a couple hours. Last week Peter brought me a body pillow to help me sleep more comfortably, and it's been a huge help, except it creates this kind of puffy brick wall barrier between us in the bed. Rolling over is a bit of a production where I wake up, decide I want to actually roll over, heft the pillow over myself and then grunt and heave myself over to the other side. Sexy. When I sleep it's this weird straddling/cuddling of the pillow. I can't even see my husband on the other side. I'm going to name the pillow Peter 2. Or Al the Alligator. One of the books I've been reading, The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy, likens rolling over late in pregnancy with a body pillow as wrestling an alligator. She's right! I've never wrestled an alligator but I can only assume this is exactly the same.

Here are some other random tidbits from the past week:

Very scientific and to-scale drawing to show you how the baby is positioned.

-A (presumably) homeless man congratulated me yesterday, which I thought was pretty sweet. At least it was nice in comparison to the douche-lord at Starbucks two minutes earlier, who, the split second I closed my laptop, raced over to my table and asked "Are you leaving?" and then hovered while I packed away my computer and power cord, notebook, phone and water bottle. Seriously, guy. Fuck off somewhere with your frappuccino while I get my act together and waddle out of here.

-The Eddie Bauer Soothing Comfort Playard was designed to make new parents cry, sit on the floor and question their ability to raise a child when they can't even fold up a playpen successfully. "How was ALL THIS in THAT box??" I wailed. More than once. Soothing comfort? Maybe for baby. Not for us.

-I was practicing putting a stuffed bear into our carseat and if it were a real baby I'd have dislocated his/her arms and potentially crushed his penis (if baby is, in fact, of the penised variety).

-Out for a walk with Pete and the dog last night a car full of hooligans drove by and some 16-year-old screamed out the window at us, "You know that's my kid, right?" Stay classy, Sackville!

Peter and I spent the weekend at a cottage in Cape Breton that was described by the owners as "rustic", which was fine with us. We were attending a friend's wedding on Saturday, and we wanted to get a place to stay that was pet-friendly so we could bring Rory. (He turned one on Saturday - and you can't abandon a dog in a kennel on his birthday! What kind of unfit parents would we be??)

So, we rented this "rustic" cottage in the country, and everything was going great. We brought some groceries, the owner left us homemade cream of mushroom soup, and we spent time reading on the deck and going to the beach as well as attending a lovely wedding.

We let our dishes build up in the sink yesterday, soaking in some soapy water. This morning we woke up early, packed, and set about tidying the cottage. I filled up the sink with fresh water and washed the dishes while Peter dried. What a little tag team.

When the dishes were done I drained the water and reached down into the suds to grab the gunk out of the drain and throw it in the garbage, as you do.

I grabbed something soft. I assumed it was a soaked piece of bagel.

IT WAS A DEAD MOUSE.

I screamed and ran into the bathroom and slammed the door, hysterically shrieking and dry-heaving. Peter thought I'd cut myself and was bleeding to death. Finally, he was able to deduce my screeches, got the dead mouse out of the sink and threw it away while I scrubbed my hands for a good 10 minutes and tried not to barf or cry.

We assume the mouse went for a peanut-buttery knife we'd left in the sink, fell in the water and the rest is history.

And it was only after we'd packed our car and were well on our way that we realized: Those dishes we'd washed, dried, and put away, ready for the next renters to use? Had spent the night soaking in the same water as a dead mouse.

Moral of the story: When you rent a house, cottage, cabin, whatever, wash the dishes before you eat off them, even if they look clean.

We may have stayed there before you.