I see now why the old-fashioned term for “due date” is Estimated Date of Confinement. It’s because I ought to be confined. I am not even kidding. Women like myself at this stage of pregnancy are not fit to be in public. None of my clothes completely cover my body, leaving bare large and embarrassing swaths of stretch-marked skin. The only shoes that still fit my feet are an atrocious pair of Old Navy flip-flops. I no longer possess the wherewithal to monitor my pedicure (such as it ever is) and I haven’t been able to walk without waddling for months now. The very sight of me makes strangers smile; though whether from sympathy or mirth — I really do look ridiculous, like I could tip over at any moment — I can’t tell.

I am, as so aptly put by a commiserant at the mall, “meaner than a junkyard dog.” I will pick a fight with my loved ones, to say nothing of strangers, and god help you if you cut in front of me in line at Giant Eagle. The only proper place for a miserable lump of humanity such as myself is at home, with my feet on the couch, perusing contraction-timing apps for my iPhone and googling things like “pregnancy crazy legal defense” or “[my zipcode] chocolate delivery.”

And the heavy sighing. I could blow you over with the heavy sighing.

All of this, however, should not be construed as complaining, Oh Force In Charge Of Healthy Babies. I am grateful to have this writhing lump in my abdomen, I promise. I just would kind of maybe rather prefer that she GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT I’M DONE.

I have been having false labor pains since Tuesday. I came home from work that night convinced that I’d be holding my baby by Friday. Ha! Good one! Oldest trick in the fetal playbook, don’t you know. Contractions and dilation mean nothing. You shouldn’t believe you are in labor until the nurses are pestering you to sign the birth certificate.

I decided to check my archives to see how it all went down the last time I went into labor on my own: five years ago, with Owen. Well. He was born Jan 5. On Dec 23, I was 2 cm dilated. On Jan 3, my contractions were 20 minutes apart. So basically, I was in labor for two weeks. Which means that, as my due date is not until Sept 14, I should abandon hope of going early with this one, dammit. No matter how ready I am.

Most of the time you can find me on the couch, panting, with my feet on the coffee table, counting down the days and lifting my shirt away from the taut skin of my belly, which has stretchmarks in a rainbow of colors, including two pinpricks of red where I swear the skin just gave up and split.

But aside from all these physical complaints, I’m excited. We are excited. We are forever talking about this baby. The kids like to talk to her through my navel. I like to imagine holding her and feeding her and rocking her. The overall atmosphere in our house is one of joyous anticipation (tempered, during Iain’s and my more realistic moments, by what I confess is the sheer terror of someone who has become accustomed to sleeping at night). But mostly, we are really happy and really excited and really eager for her to get here and join us. (And OK, fine, no one moreso than me.)

Actually, no, not breaking news. I think I broke this on Facebook. Or you could say it broke when I told my mother and my neighbor.

BUT life wouldn’t be right if I didn’t make a big fancy deal on my Actual Blog: We’re having a GIRL!

A GIRL.

WE ARE HAVING A GIRL. CAPSLOCK.

You may have noticed that I only have boy children. I have a house full of Legos and trains and cars and trucks; bins full of jeans with holes in the knees, walls reverberating with BAM BAM BAM PEW PEW YOU’RE DEAD! I have been informed not only of the The Pink, but of Disney Princesses, and lo, I am scared.

But frankly, I’m majorly psyched, too. Hair to braid! Dresses to sew! A new nursery to decorate (though I think it’s staying blue, which only suits because Owen started his life with us in a pink bedroom). Maybe she’ll be the quiet booky kind, and we can quietly read books together. Or I’ll teach her to knit, since my boys won’t hold still long enough. Or she’ll hate knitting, too, but look so cute in overalls and a ballcap when her dad teaches her how to fish.

Twenty-five years from now, I’ll have a shopping partner, someone to call me on the phone over coffee at 10 a.m. I’ll be her someone to vent to when she’s 20 weeks pregnant and feeling as big as a house.

Honestly? I thought this one was a boy. I had visions of My Three Sons, of my troop of blue-eyed guys, wrestling and mowing the lawn and disappearing in a blur of dust and mud, like Pig Pen with six legs. Three brothers, like my cousins; three brothers, like my dad with my two uncles. I was mentally prepared for three to a room, bunk beds, being outnumbered.

Now I have to readjust that vision. Well, maybe I don’t have to; I suppose I need to see what kind of person she is before I start assigning her dollies and Mary Janes and dance recitals. She just might be into dirt and mud and tagging along with her brothers. Or maybe she’ll be into both dirt and dollies, and it’ll be my job just to be the open arms (with the washcloth in the back pocket) at the end of the day when all three of my kids troop home.

Image via luvinthemommyhood; individual photos courtesy of the tutorial designers themselves

Luvinthemommyhood has a fabulous roundup of maternity sewing tutorials, hints, tips, and tricks. I’ve already used this awesome tutorial to turn a pair of fat pants into elastic-waist maternity pants (thereby doubling my pants wardrobe! Pathetic!).

Since a new pair of maternity jeans hovers in the $60 range, and thrift store pants are about $4 or $5, and I already have several yards of three-inch elastic … well! This is math even I can do.

» luvinthemommyhood: maternity sewing tutorial roundup.

Ptooey on you.

Now excuse me, I’ve got to find a way to make this bathrobe look appropriate for the office.

Anyway. Everyone’s doing well. Psyched for Easter. Going to go boil some eggs right now, actually. The candy just has to last through one more night of me picking at it. I hope there’s enough left for baskets. And I hope you all have a lovely Easter, if you’re into that sort of thing. Kisses from ol’ Flakey-head, here.

• Frozen broccoli lasagna, microwaved for three minutes and then stirred. And then dropped upside down on the floor. Add giant racking sobs. Sit on floor next to ill-fated dinner for two minutes,  then deposit sulkily in trash
• Open ridiculous package of bagel dogs bought on impulse during Week Eight. Microwave for 54 seconds; then eat on couch while watching incredibly fit women ski downhill faster than I drive on the highway. Stop chewing every time someone bites it on the hill. Resume chewing when they walk away mostly unhurt.
• Serve with 12 oz of water, poured in a mason jar and drunk rather quickly, because damn, bagel dogs is like 99% sodium.

Dessert:

• Carefully unwrap 6 hershey’s kisses.
• With a spoon, scoop out approx 1.5 tbs creamy store-brand peanut butter
• OH YES, you are dipping those kisses in peanut butter immediately after having eaten bagel dogs, because you are PREGNANT and nobody UNDERSTANDS and you dropped your healthy broccoli lasagna on the FLOOR and just fuck it, OK?

Cleanse the palate with 6 more oz of water and a prenatal vitamin the size of your thumb. Voila! A healthy, completely balanced meal. Shut up.

For example, today’s post is going to tell you that the kids are sitting with Iain in the recliner playing Wii Lego Star Wars and that I need to switch the laundry and there goes the snow plow down our street.

I lost momentum over the weekend when my family came to visit; we were always cooking or eating or playing Qwirkle or gasping at the Olympics, and then Sunday we went to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History together. We had a really good time. It’s kind of bonkers that we there are six of us and even though we’re mostly grown up, we still like to hang out together. I think that’s pretty cool.

Oh look, it’s freaking snowing again. This afternoon I got stuck in a snowbank while trying to back out of my garage so that I could drive my iBook to the repair shop. I had to spend twenty minutes wracking every part of my Midwestern brain to figure out how to get myself unstuck (hint: put the kids in the house, grab a shovel) and am thereby extra snowbound, which, oh yay. Just what I needed for the longest winter ever. Oh and plus here’s my busted computer sitting on the coffee table, snowbound along with me.

In baby news: I am 10 weeks along and totally in maternity pants and Bella Bands. The baby is about the size of my thumb, so the only excuse I have is a major carbohydrate addiction and the fact that my body gets the whole “pregnant” message loud and clear pretty much immediately. I’m having better nausea days, or maybe I should say “fewer,” though of course it hasn’t let up all the way. My fingernails are growing at Guinness World Book speeds but my skin has reverted to ninth-grade student ID photo day. I’m having fucked up dreams and waking every morning at 4:15 a.m. for no reason other than that I’ll have a newborn again and evidently need the practice.

In child news: Cormac is kind of potty training himself, by which I mean he’ll have an accident in his pants, remove said pants, and stay high and dry and naked from the waist down the remainder of the day. I suppose I can’t critique the method — it works, though it makes me shiver to see his tiny heinie running naked around our 68-degree house.

Owen is a joy and a help these days, fetching me antacids and pretzels and keeping a stern eye on his younger brother. He asks me for chores to do so he can earn money to buy this ridiculous Lego police station that even Santa couldn’t swing. He loves to wear black dress socks and sweatpants and long-sleeve T-shirts with some sort of boy-approved image (Lego, Pirates of the Caribbean, Power Rangers, et cetera). He has a bunch of girlfriends at school and is reading a few books from memory, which is freaking awesome to witness. Mostly it’s the black dress socks that kill me. He may only be five, but in his heart he’s 54 and about to retire.

Ha ha. Ha. Look, I know it’s par for the course for American prenatal care. “Drop your drawers, fill out a form, drop your drawers, pay the copay, drop your drawers, think of England”— but come on.

*shake hands* ”Hi. I’m Dr So And So. Please scoot down.”

Ugh. The exam, the sonogram, the second sonogram because the doctor wants to make extra sure that everything from the first sonogram is OK, another exam, because the last exam was actually an annual exam, and this exam is an OBSTETRICAL exam and that is TOTALLY DIFFERENT …

Yarg. I wish we could have some Victorian style prenatal care up in this piece, where the doctor walks in, asks you some questions from the other side of the room, and carefully averts his eyes, lest he catch a glimpse of someone’s pregnant belly.

*grimaces* *waves* “Hi. I’m Dr So And So. … You look pregnant from here. Well done. Try not catch tuberculosis.”

Eh? Eh? Everyone keeps everyone’s pants on and waiting times are reduced by 9000%. BRILLIANT. Plus lots more people could be OBGYNs, thereby eliminating the “doctor shortage.” A-plus, Victorian Era Medical Practices!