37 weeks and change...

Still pregnant.
Still having tons of contractions.
Still feeling great in the mornings, exhausted in the afternoons, significantly uncomfortable at night.
Nothing terribly interesting going on.

I keep trying to compare this pregnancy to Suzannah's, but obviously that's ridiculous, and I'm only succeeding in driving myself crazy. I know perfectly well I could go into labor tomorrow or still be pregnant two weeks from now, and that's all fine; it's just hard for me, the eternal control-freak, to accept the fact that I can't predict when or how labor will start. Or how it will go. I know there's some annoying life lesson in all this.

Thanksgiving was, overall, quite pleasant. Matt baked his famous pies, my dad took care of the turkey and stuffing, and my mom cooked pretty much everything else and cleaned my house and put up my Christmas decorations. (See, Friday or Saturday would have been such a convenient day for me to go into labor -- so much help, a clean house...which is why I knew it wouldn't happen.) On Saturday, we drove up to Seattle and wandered around a bit; I wanted to hit up the Elliott Bay Book Company and we had some good coffee. I didn't think I'd make it to Seattle again before I had this baby, but suddenly it seemed like a good idea. And it was fine, but every time I start to feel guilty about leaving work before I'm actually in labor, I go out and walk more than twenty feet and realize that I'm really, really not up for working days anymore. Matt parked just down the street from the bookstore, and by the time I waddled in the door I was really, really uncomfortable. If I'm on my feet, I'm pretty much contracting non-stop.

BUT, I have officially passed the 37-week mark! Which means that whenever I do go into labor, I can head to the birth center and deliver with my fabulous midwife. It also means I can vigorously scrub the kitchen at 10:30 at night if I feel like it without worrying that I'm going to send my body into preterm labor, and that's exactly what I did last night. It took a long time, because by that time of night I am one big ball of Braxton-Hicks contractions and I actually have to breathe through some of them, but wow, did it feel good to scrub things. I haven't done much more than light dusting for over three weeks now, and my nesting urges have been pretty unbearable.

But it made Matt nervous. "Is this a LABOR PROJECT?" he kept asking.

"I don't think so," I said. But then I reminded him that labor, at this point, is pretty inevitable. And also, it's going to happen soon regardless of whether I scrub the kitchen or lie on the couch.

"Well, yeah," he said. "But you know me. I like to procrastinate."

At any rate, I woke up very much Not In Labor this morning. Matt and I headed to my 37-week prenatal appointment (I wasn't sure I'd make it this far!) and things are fine -- now we're just waiting. I vacuumed my house today (ahhhh!) and did some laundry and squeezed in a nap. It's weird not to be teaching. This morning I felt so energetic that I wasted a good chunk of time second-guessing my "early" maternity leave, but as usual, once lunchtime hit, I couldn't keep my eyes open or remain comfortably on my feet, so I guess that's my answer.