The End

I always do a post like this near the end of my pregnancies, so I can't leave this one out!


How you know you are done being pregnant:
*You can no longer see your belly button. It's just gone. I know it's there, but my belly is so stretched out now that I can't see any part of it. Goodbye belly button, I'll miss you.


*Shaving your legs goes from daily, to bi weekly, to once weekly, to I can't shave my legs anymore because I can't get to them. I reached that point today. I stood in the shower for several minutes holding the razor, knowing I needed to shave, but not sure how it was supposed to happen. I decided to sit on the shower floor, which was a feat in and of itself. After I shaved, I had to call and yell and scream for Larry to come help me. I even told Kitty to go fetch Larry. She just stared at me. When I finally heard Larry running I felt kind of bad saying "I'm ok, I just need help up." 


*You're scared to eat sweets because you know it's just going to make the baby fatter, which will just make it harder to get him out. 


*When it's time to take prayer requests at small group your husband (who never has prayer requests) says, "Prayers for my crazy pregnant wife to not be so crazy anymore."


*You find yourself caring less and less about things like being ready for a supply teacher, or having a clean house, or making sure things are ready. All you can think is, Come out come out wherever you are!


*You are sure that the baby hates you. All he is doing is getting bigger and stretching and kicking and hiccuping and surely he is trying to kill you.


*You hate anyone and everyone who fits in the following categories:
-They have ankles
-They can see their belly button
-They can bend over
-They can move quickly
-Hell, they can move


*The following phrases make you want to scream (and yes, these are ALL things I have heard frequently in the past 2 weeks.)
-Man, your ankles look awful! You should put your feet up. I'll get right on that. After I finish teaching 1st graders, watching my toddlers, and running errands. Move away from me.
- I'm surprised you're here! I thought for sure you would have had the baby by now. Nope. 5 more weeks.
-How much longer do you have? forever.
-I had such an awful birth experience! Let me tell you all about how painful and horrible it was! Great. Thanks. I feel so informed now.
-How many kids are you going to have? I'm blessed. Bite me.
-We need you to pee in a cup. I can't even see my belly button, how am I supposed to see my pee and aim inside of your stupid cup? How about I just tell you that the test is positive, I'm pregnant, hooray and hippee doo. 


As I'm ready to turn 36 weeks tomorrow I know the end is close. And I'm so very thankful for that. I just need him to stay in for one more week, then he can come whenever he is ready. My fears are lessening as the annoyances of being pregnant compound. I think God designed pregnancy pretty well. It doesn't get *really* horrible until the very end and that's a really good thing because otherwise, you would just stay pregnant. Having a baby is overwhelming and frightening in so many ways, so you need something (see all the above) to make you forget that so you can just focus on getting the baby out. 


And yes, it's always worth it. Yes, I'll go through all this crappiness again if God blesses me. The fact is, the next 4 weeks are totally worth those first moments and all the ones thereafter. 


I just have to make it. And if that means secretly hating any and all women who have thin ankles and falling asleep to terrible thoughts of said women having horrible accidents where their thin ankles give out and make them fall down, so be it.