full term of endearment

so it looks like i am going to be 2-for-2 on carrying baby-life to full term. whoopie. 37 weeks was reached on saturday and this is the "full term" point in pregnancy where everybody's pretty cool and confident that everything would be A-okay if baby came out from this point on. this is also the point where i get to start saying, "any day now..."

as far as produce goes, my 36 week buddy was supposed to be a crenshaw melon, but...wtf is that? and shah right my local publix carried those. so i manhandled a hefty spaghetti squash instead.

sweet moley that thing is huge. 6 lbs, 18 inches long...just like little miss should be right now. (check out those 3 hotties in the background scoping me out)

so we're on the weekly OB visit schedule now. there are 5 doctors at my practice and i rotate seeing them all since i need to be "familiar" with each in case my favorite (t-bex) isn't on call when i go. i was thinking after my first pelvic of this new babymaking season last week that an OB with really long fingers would be awesome so that when you get checked at the early end-stages of pregnancy, when the baby and the cervix are still pretty up in there, you wouldn't suffer as much (i can explain in more detail if you aren't getting the picture.

well this morning i was all ready to go on the padded stiruppy table and the nurse came in and said the doctor i was supposed to see was in delivery so another one would do my checkup. i had seen this dr. K once before. but when she came in and started typing on the computer i looked down and my heart quailed.

in case you were wondering, the contest for "stumpiest fingers on an OB" is now closed. because this chick took home first prize with no competition. and i was right about the correlation between concert-pianist type fingers and comfort level during a pelvic. yikes.

but the result was interesting: 2 cm and effaced. okay. i would say that's good news but i know chicks who have walked around at a 4 for 2 weeks before delivering.

so i am getting a free cm a week. so if i just hold on for 8 more weeks i will wake up on christmas morning with a new baby in bed with me, not even having noticed going through the labor of getting to 10 cm. like the horse scene from the godfather...only happy...and a healthy baby instead of a horse head.

i am a firm believer that i cannot have a baby until i have experienced the misery endgame of pregnancy. and i am not quuuuuuite there yet. the misery stage with judah consisted of sausage toes, feet that hurt so bad i was forced to wear yellow crocs everywhere, and 90 minute efforts at getting out of chairs or bed. plus a hearty variety of grunts and groans any time i tried to rotate, flip or otherwise locomote my bulk.

i have a good strong waddle that shows up if my stomach or bladder is full, but for the most part i can still chase judah around, capture errant cats and even sit up unassisted most of the time. so, maybe she's gonna be later rather than sooner. who knows how long judah would have stayed in there if he hadn't wolverined his way our of the bag of waters a week early? and i would rather have her go 2 weeks late than have my water break early, because that's what make doctors pay attention to me and keep track of when it's time to IV the devil juice in (see here for details).

look at those talons! apparently my uterus gives elegant french mani's

so there you have it. your weekly peek into my cervix. you're sooooo welcome. stay tuned as next week we feature: the mucus plug! (ew, not really). i dare you to google image search that term by the way. i DARE you