Since I'm still pregnant...

...I'm gonna show IT to you. Yeah, since you kids were all nice in your responses to the photo of my big mug the other day, I've decided to just throw it out there and post a photo that actually proves I'm harboring Circus. Or at least wearing a weird prosthetic in which I can store produce, just like the she-man in the coolest video ever made, which is of course Jane's Addiction Been Caught Stealing. Whichever theory you subscribe to, since this blog is kind of my personal scrapbook, it's probably only fitting that I put a belly photo up.

So here it is...taken last Saturday at one day shy of 39 weeks. We were going to a wedding, which means I wasn't wearing the hideous usual, so I had Big K take a side view photo of the grand ol' Circus in utero before we left:

And here is one of both Big Ks looking all cheesy:

And, yes, I remain highly pregnant. As a "compromise" for not inducing me now, my doctor has upped me to twice weekly non-stress tests. For those of you not familiar with these tests, they strap some belts to your belly, one of which monitors the baby's heart rate. During the test, you hear your baby's heart beat the entire time. I look forward to the tests for that reason only. This extensive monitoring does mean I get to be one of the few moms who is as familiar with their baby's heart beat as that baby is with mine. Well, that's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. It's nice and reassuring and I like it. That's the happy news.

The bad news is that I have a godforsaken cold. Today I am feeling a bit better, but the previous two days have been hell. I had sinus pressure/pain/congestion across my whole face, ears included. Man do I hate that. I have been unable to breathe. My already insane inability to sleep has been further complicated by sinus congestion/full-body discomfort/application of intermittent squirts of throat spray to my sorry ragged throat. Consequently, I have actually been hoping I do not go into labor, since the capacity to breathe is a great thing to have in your birthing toolkit, and I'd kind of like to wait until I have that skill back before I have to go do the birth-a-thon. Today I am actually blowing my nose instead of just wondering what I am saying as I hear the muffled tones of my own speech, so I'm considering it progress. I would just like to say to the fates that I do not appreciate this additional tax on my very, very depleted store of energy. I am one tired dog. I really, really, really wish my husband worked for a place that offered paid paternity leave so I could have him come home now for these last gasps of pregnancy to take care of Phook-related business, freeing me up to do a lot more nothing. Alas, that is not the case, so I am sucking it up, pressing on, and absolutely marveling at the fact that my ankles remain unswollen and therefore fit for other humans to cast their gaze upon in this humidity-laden Midwestern cess pit I call home.

There have been no signs of impending labor. Not a Braxton. Not a Hicks. No unusual unusualness that might occur if my body were gearing up to drop a kid. I did feel compelled to make a meal in the crock pot today even though we are going over to my mom's house for spaghetti tonite, but I don't know if that is compulsive enough, given how I typically roll, to count for anything resembling the frenzied nesting instinct that sends some 9-monther mommas up on ladders to stencil cutesy shit in their baby's nursery at 2 a.m. I think it was more because I'd defrosted the hamburger before I knew we were going to my mom's and I didn't want to waste it. So, if you have some story about how everything seemed totally normal for you, and then the next thing you knew you were in rip-roaring labor and your baby squirted out 4 hours later, now would be the time to helpfully post that in the comments.

So, that's where I'm at. Large. Snotty. Wishing for a nanny named Big K. And, ultimately, pregnant.