35 WEEKS

SUP 35 SUP.

For a while, the progress of the belly was forward-marching, but in the past couple of weeks, the growth has moved outward. And so now it is super ROUND. I am a rotund lady with a rotund belly. Except for when she is moving, which is so very often, and she is big enough now that when she shifts around it makes my belly lumpy. Also, this is weird and no one has told me about this before, but I can HEAR her moving sometimes. At first I thought it was my imagination, but it’s happened enough times for me to confirm its real – it sounds kind of like the sound your bone makes when you are cracking your knuckles, but softer and more plastic-y. A pop, crackle, snap, if you will. Also, her movements are so big and her body parts do much more obvious twists and turns that it makes my organs feel strange and often catches me off guard. Lumpy, uncomfortable, jabbed and prodded, large, rotund, slow - are all words that could describe this 35th week.

One of the things I find myself doing a lot these days is staring at the calendar. There are a lot of things coming up, and it is calming to stare at those evenly spaced boxes, laid out in rows, providing a space in which to visualize my to-dos. As I eyeball the different dates and scroll through the weeks, I think about packing, trips to Ikea, our house walk-through, trips to Lowe's, the closing date for our house, delivery dates of our furniture, moving day, painting, a wedding, my birthday, and dates when my sisters and parents come in for their visit. A date that I don’t really focus on too much is my due date. In large part because I already know that the day the baby comes is going to be out of my control, and that there is no reason for me to fixate on a date which will probably turn out to not be the actual day. The time frame helps, but I am resolved to be open to whatever happens. Calm, peace, and patience - are other words that I am trying to make part of the next few weeks.