In celebration of reaching forty weeks,
again, here are a few ways you know you're nine months pregnant:
- You decide the sheet on the top bunk is clean enough on linen-laundry day.
- You sometimes have to walk to the far bathroom in the middle of the night (once, twice, or three times) to ease the ache in your hips before laying back down again.
- You begin to dig into the stash of prepared dinners (or take advantage of the offers of ready dinners from very kind and generous friends) because otherwise the kids already running around the house would be eating cold cereal for breakfast and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and dinner.
- Only a few of the maternity clothes fit anymore. The good news is, with so few clothes, the laundry is always getting done or there wouldn't be anything to wear to the hospital.
- Every morning, you think "Maybe today." That night, you think "Maybe tonight." In the morning, you think "Maybe today..."
- Everywhere you go, people ask when you're due. Every. Single. Person. Who talks to you. And you have to cheerfully answer, "Today" or "Yesterday" or "Last Tuesday." You begin to wish people would just say "You look wonderful!" Or maybe..."Let me get you some ice cream!"
- As you reach into the cupboard for a cup, the baby belly tips things over on the counter.
- You begin every phone call with a cheerful "No baby yet!"
- You begin to contemplate whether it would be easier to get out of bed and lay down again than it is to roll over.
- You are out with the kids on one last play date and realize you can't find your two year old. Just as your heart starts to pound and you feel the panic creeping in, you bend over and discover her standing right in front of you. Hidden by the baby belly.
