To my future self,

So much for intuition, and so much for all the thoughts we may have had about this being a "May Baby." Unless things really start moving in the next couple of hours, Little Bit will be waiting until next month to make the grand entrance. We are still pregnant, four days away from our "official" due date, and we are now beginning to have the feeling that we will always be pregnant - a perpetual Host Body to the ever-enlarging child within you, who will eventually grow big enough to simply take over and control us as it sees fit.

Of course, you'll know by the time you read this, a few years down the road, that these thoughts were simply the product of an exhausted, overly-anxious mind. You'll be a "real" mother by then, to a child with a name, birth certificate, and favorite color. You'll no doubt look back on these ramblings of your former self and laugh at my naivety. Even so, I believe that I do have some bits of wisdom to impart to you, so read on.

Time has a way of eroding the memory. I talk to our Mom, and I can hear it in her stories: she knows that her labor with us was easy, but she doesn't remember having any Braxton-Hicks contractions at all. She doesn't remember, except for the most awful things, what made her worry; she only remembers the very best of what made her glad. I want to be of help, so I thought I'd set out here, with firmly written words, exactly what was were the high and low points with this pregnancy.

Morning sickness: well, we never had much of it. We worried, but that was a waste of time. For the few bits of nausea that would occasionally sweep over the stomach, Sea Bands worked brilliantly. (I'm hoping they'll work as well for nausea during labor; you'll have to let me know how that goes.) In the future, should subsequent pregnancies also lack the need for morning toilet runs, you should hold onto your worries and count your blessings.

Actually, the whole first trimester wasn't nearly as bad as we'd been led to believe. We were very hungry and exceedingly sleepy, but as long as we were in the vicinity of food and a bed, life was pretty darn pleasant, all things considered. We never had any implantation bleeding or much cramping. The biggest problem we faced was our constant worry that something would go wrong - so don't do that, you hear?

Actually, now that I sit down and think about it, we only had three major complaints with this pregnancy:

• Back pain
• Swelling
• Stretch marks

Not much we could do about the back pain, now that we know the cause. Hopefully the exercises we'll be learning after giving birth will aid us with any future pains. Oh, and never forget the Watsu! It was our lifesaver this past month; we went from agony to pain-free in only a few days. Definitely something to remember for subsequent pregnancies or general backaches.

The swelling was bad. We didn't just swell a little bit; if we forgot to drink a ton of water and put up our feet, they wouldn't fit into any shoes at all, including the sandals we wore for the entire last two months. [Pause to take a drink.] Oh, and we pitted; If Eric pressed his finger into the top of our foot, it left a dent the size of a small canyon. Still, none of the midwives were concerned, since our blood pressure was good, so all of the pregnancy books that regarded pitting as a sign of Horrible Things can be regarded as something less than Gospel. Yes, swelling was terribly uncomfortable, but highly manageable in the grand scheme of things.

Oh, and the stretch marks. Yuck. I'm sorely tempted to have my stomach tattooed or painted or something to cover these ghastly things. A few wouldn't have bothered me, but sweet heavens, I've managed to accumulate enough for a village of women. Word to the wise: the lotions are a waste of money.

What didn't bother us? Well, sleeping wasn't a problem. All of the books seemed to indicate that sleep would be difficult and uncomfortable in the final months of pregnancy, but we've had no trouble at all snuggling next to Eric and drifting off. Frequent trips to the bathroom? Not something that bothered us, either. We haven't at any point through the entire nine months had to get up any more than twice a night to run to the bathroom, and doing so those few worst times was not tremendously annoying. No bathroom difficulties at all, actually - the extra iron in the prenatal vitamins seemed to give us no problems whatsoever.

I'm sure I've forgotten other minor nuisances (heartburn, for one, just popped to mind), but these were, as I said, minor. Even should Mommy Amnesia totally erase these from our consciousness, our ability to recount this pregnancy should be unaffected. Really, who wants to remember bleeding gums?

Maybe I'm being totally presumptuous in assuming that this information will be of any worth to us in the future. You may decide that the Bit is to be an only child, choosing not to become pregnant with any future children. God forbid it, you could have to face fertility struggles once more, and this time you might not win. I have no way to view the future. Still, at this moment in time, I simply have the feeling that these memories might just come in handy, for whatever reason we'll choose.

Don't panic! We love being pregnant. And next time, take more time to enjoy it from the very beginning.

Love, Me.

Tonight is what I'm hoping (again) could be our last midwife appointment. This time, Eric will be given "baby-catching lessons"! For a man who's squeamish about perineal massage, he's been unsurprisingly reluctant for this particular appointment. He's seemingly a bit uncomfortable with dealing with that area of my anatomy in so frankly a clinical nature. One can hope that the imminent arrival of a newborn head will shock him out of his reluctance, but who knows? He hasn't really made any firm commitments concerning whether or not he'd like to be the one to catch the baby, so I think he'd like to leave his options open to change. Leaving those options open, though, is firmly predicated on having the knowledge and ability to act, should he so desire, so this lesson will be an important one.

Summer Reading sign-ups start this Saturday. All things considered, I'll probably still be very pregnant then, so I've agreed to come in and assist with the process. Aren't I the trooper?