Physical Updates:
-38 weeks on Thursday
-Been using evening primrose oil and pressure points all week
-Hips and lower back VERY achey and sore
-Lots of dull pain in my abdomen
-Lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions
-Baby has somehow dropped even lower. I find it hard to sit on a chair with one leg crossed over the other because the baby is right there. Also, sitting cross-legged on the floor in general seems to be difficult.

Next doctor's appointment is tomorrow. I'm hoping to hear the magic "D" word, but will settle for mostly effaced. Anything less will likely leave me in tears until about Thursday or so.

In other news, I've had two coworkers see me in my car and exclaim with surprise, "You have a carseat!" To which I've replied, "Yes. I am having a baby. State law maintains that I need one." I also have been generally avoiding any possibilities of small talk with coworkers....as I hate small talk anyway and I especially hate small talk related to me having a baby. The most dreaded and banal, yet frequent, ones I hear multiple times throughout the day are,
-So, you starting to count down?
-So, you starting to get excited?
-So, you starting to get nervous?
(And the mother of all terrible and annoying things to say....)
-I hope you're catching up on your sleep now! Did you know that you're not going to get much of it once the BABY comes?!?!

arg.

The next few weeks have just gotten somehow more intense. Someone very close to Nic passed away this weekend. He was the father of two of Nic's closest friends, and was also one of the closest individuals to a father to Nic. As much as I want this baby to come out this week, I am hoping that her timing lets Nic spend time with everyone he needs to spend time with this week and that it doesn't interfere with the memorial services. It's almost unreal to experience so many life-changing events one on top of the other. Needless to say, we have been and will continue to take everything not only day by day, but hour by hour.

I've also finally.....turned in my thesis edits. I'm not entirely proud of the finished product. It might be because I'm still tired of thinking about the paper. And there is a very real chance that the head of the thesis committee might make reject my edits and make me re-re-submit my paper after more work. Admittedly, I probably didn't do a very dynamic edit. I know there are still things that needed to be addressed in the paper, but chose to turn it in anyway. I don't like feeling like I took the easy way out, but I need to get the paper in and done. I am indeed hoping to go back to grad school in a few years, but for a program that does NOT have a thesis requirement. Also, I probably never do a PhD after this experience. Things like useless trivia has riddled my brain and has made it impossible for me to ever write a dissertation. Anyway, hope you had a nice weekend, gentle reader(s). Here's hoping for dilation!