Throughout this pregnancy we’ve been explaining to Nora what is about to happen the best we can. I think she understands parts of it, like that baby brother is in my belly, and I think she understands - to some extent - that he is not going to be in my belly forever (I understand this to some extent, too…most days).

She’s seen the baby stuff around the house and we talk about that, we read books about being a big sister and we even took a “sibling tour” of Yale Hospital with a few other soon-to-be older siblings and their parents, which was one of the cutest experiences ever. We met a newborn baby and Nora got some graham crackers, so she had the time of her life.

One thing that J has been totally great about is explaining the timing of the new baby’s arrival to her. Timing is something that two-and-a-half-year-old Nora is just starting to grasp. Like I can now say to her, “We’re going to go to the library and see your friends after you take a nap,” and she can handle this, although she really couldn’t just a couple months ago. For a while I couldn’t talk about anything until right before it was going to happen, and I still can’t talk about the most exciting things except in this way, like going to a birthday party or to her grandparents’ house. Or having ice cream, obviously.

What J has been doing for a while now is talking about what month it is in regards to the new baby. So in February, he’d say, “When’s baby brother coming?” And Nora would say, “In April!” And he’d say, “Is it April yet?” And she’d say, “No, it’s February!” In March, the same thing. I realize she doesn’t truly get the timing of the calendar or anything like that, but I think this was the very best way to deal with the subject. My husband is brilliant at making things like this fun for a toddler and somehow has the patience to do so repeatedly while never growing tired of the game. Recently I’ve really seen the heights of what an awesome dad he is and will be. He pulls the most amazing energy out of nowhere, just when I’m about to pass out on the couch.

Whatever Nora gets out of it, watching this ongoing discussion has been wonderful for me, too. Particularly the other morning, when J hopped out of bed to get Nora dressed and ready for the day, allowing me some blissful extra minutes of rest. “When’s baby brother coming?” I heard him ask, to which Nora promptly responded, “In April!” He followed up with the inevitable, “Is it April yet?” And Nora, because she didn’t know of course, said, “No, it’s March.” So J replied with the beautiful truth that, “No! It’s April NOW! Baby brother is coming soon!”

I got an email from my father this morning and wanted to share it with all of you. It was especially timely as I experienced a near-fainting experience while I was getting my hair cut last night, after sitting still in a chair for too long (just like when the same thing happened last time), and I was kind of like, “Wow, maybe I’m over this.”

I really like this image of waking up to cupcakes and all and it is, from here on out, how I am going to envision my delivery.

From: Fred Rotondaro
To:Cara McDonough
Date: Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Subject: If God Were a Woman

Pregnancy would last 27 days

The mom would have no weight gain. Fathers would gain approximately 5 times the weight of the child. Fathers would experience frequent gas pains.

Doctors would insist moms keep up their strength by drinking large amounts of strong red wine

On the morning of the 27th day, just before mom woke up, the child would slip quietly out of mom’s left ear.
As mom awoke, the child would give her coffee and cupcakes.
And would turn the tv to “Morning Joe.”

From then on, life would get better for mom.

If God Were A Woman.

The other day I was talking to J about something, I don’t remember what, and he said, in response to something I had said (complaining? I am willing to bet that maybe I was complaining, like maybe about how it’s unfair that I have to wear pants at this point), “Well, you’re eight months pregnant, so…”

And I was like, “Yeah I am!” Eight months pregnant is when you get to say you are “eight months pregnant” all the time, in reference to being tired, or being starving to death or being demanding. “Well, I’m eight months pregnant, so yes, I think I am really going to bed at 7:30.”

To tell you the absolute truth, I don’t feel that bad at all. I have to admit at this point - nearly all the way through my second pregnancy - that I’ve had it very easy both times around. No back pain. Barely any heartburn. Still, though, pregnancy can be weird and uncomfortable even at the best of times. And poor J has had to bear the brunt of my specific objections at the end of some of my longer days. Me saying things like, “my pelvis hurts” and “this baby is hurting me on purpose.”

There are many differences between my pregnancy with Nora and this one. Some of them have to do with the physical manifestation of things, and some have to do more with how I feel about and have reacted to the whole affair. Like how I drink coffee every day this time around, and with Nora I didn’t. In fact, I remember this one time when I got a decaf coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, and I was all, “Huh, this is making me feel awake. I wonder if they accidentally gave me regular coffee? And what will that mean for the baby?!” I can’t believe that person existed, but she did. And it was me.

This time I’m much more relaxed about what I’m putting into my body, which feels good, and I’m also more relaxed about what I’m doing, which is nice, too. I kept running through my first and some of my second trimester, and I’ve continued to go to my exercise classes with friends, including other pregnant women. I used to think people who said stuff like this were beyond obnoxious, but it feels great to be active while pregnant. It also feels great to watch TV for three hours straight, don’t get me wrong.

As long as I get a good night of sleep, which I have luckily been getting lately, I feel good and pretty energetic, and I think I’m in better shape than I was when I was pregnant with Nora. But hey, I’m also eight months pregnant, as I mentioned above. So there are things. Things like how I wake up thinking about birthday cake in a obsessive manner. The kind with tons of buttercream frosting. And in my mind I’m like, “What in the name of GOD IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE that that’s not a suitable breakfast choice?” I have to talk myself down. A lot of times I don’t want to eat dinner either, which, as you know, isn’t like me. I want to go straight to ice cream, but I know that wouldn’t be a good idea because I’d eat way too much ice cream. So I have to eat dinner first. But these rules! They’re starting to get to me.

Also, as I alluded to in the first paragraph, a lot of the time I don’t want to wear pants. At the end of the day, I just don’t want to. I know you’re thinking, “Ok, she means that she wants to put some drawstring pants on,” and what I’m telling you is what I mean is that I don’t want to wear pants at all.

My motivation to work isn’t ideal, I’m already - right now - thinking about how maybe we can go out for pancakes Saturday morning and sometimes I go from not having to pee in the slightest to a complete emergency situation where if I don’t pee immediately I am going to die in, like, two seconds. Less than that.

Overall, though, I do have the sense to acknowledge that things are fine. That being pregnant when you already have a little kid is definitely more tiring, but I’m also enjoying the no-big-deal aspect of it all.

Mostly, I’m beyond excited for it to be over; not because I don’t like it, but because I want to meet the baby. I felt this way at the end of my pregnancy with Nora, too, but I remember feeling a bit of premature nostalgia too, worrying that I’d miss being pregnant…feeling that little baby kicking inside me. Feeling like I needed more time to get everything done. I remember I used to picture her in there maybe writing a novel or quietly composing a symphony. Content.

That’s where this time is different, too. This baby boy kicks like he means it, up high and down low and at least once a day I am forced to let loose a very heartfelt, “OUCH.” He feels strong and huge and like he, too, is excited to get out here, and when he does I am pretty sure he is going to be immediately curious. And very, very hungry.

J says I was like this last time, but I swear I wasn’t. Then again, my memory isn’t great regarding this kind of stuff. Here are just a few of the things that have made me cry recently. It’s sort of amazing - the rapidity with which I initially tear up out of nowhere - but beyond that I’m not ashamed.

- That Folger’s commercial, obviously.
- The last page of the book “The Polar Express,” which J read to me tonight, remarking, “this is the sad part.” Come on, husband.
- An episode of “House.” I don’t remember which one but I’m willing to bet someone was pretty sick.

Yesterday was my 39 week doctor’s appointment and it went uneventfully, as all of my appointments have. Well, I mean, there was that one. About a month ago. When I gained four pounds in the span of one week, and sat there, looking incredulously at the doctor asking “But how…how could this happen,” and she smiled, and told me “Hey, it happens,” and that it was probably fluid buildup and I didn’t need to worry at all, and I suppressed yet another one of those pregnancy thoughts that I’ve been having over the last nine months, that go something like “Yeah, ha! It’s no big deal! FOR YOU IT ISN’T.”

(I ended up losing that four pounds, thus confirming the fluid buildup theory and therefore remaining sane.)

I saw the midwife I’d seen in the first 28 weeks of my pregnancy yesterday, who I love, and who was the fourth practitioner to tell me I’m probably going to have a big baby, and when we got in the car to leave it was all I really wanted to talk about - this big baby situation. I could have talked about it all day, except that J kept reminding me I was having this totally normal, healthy, wonderful pregnancy, and I needed to calm down, which is when I explained to him - calmly - that if he were going to have a baby come out of his vagina, he might be very interested in the fact that a good number of medical experts are using the word “big” to describe it, too.

Honestly, though? While my life at present, and the pregnancy in general, have been full of periods of my asking J, obsessively, truly annoying and unnecessary questions like, “But do you think I’m eating enough fruit?” the gig as a whole has been so easy and yes - truly - fun for me that I’ve got no right, no right in the world, to complain, or question or worry.

Except for the one right, the right of every woman who is pregnant for the first time, who is trying to navigate this totally mysterious and unknown bodily state, which cannot be explained by all the books in the world, certainly not by the Internet and not even by the doctors. You just have to learn.

Which brings me to 39 weeks. 39 weeks, and the three or four weeks before this, all leading to the end, have been distinguished by a general sense of calm as I’m winding down and realizing that I sort of, finally, get this. Where I’m actually welcoming the various aches and pains because I understand they’re bringing me closer to labor. Where I’ve decided not to look things up in books or ask anyone what’s “normal.” Where I finally (and for the love of God, I apologize for using a term like this, a term I’d normally leave to the yoga instructors and meditation experts) trust my body.

I feel calm about the upcoming waiting game, even. Calm knowing that I cannot know when this baby will choose to make her entrance and that it could be any minute now. It could be a week, it could be…weeks.

But despite this calm (because, come on, I’m nine-plus months pregnant, you didn’t think it was all roses, did you?) I am carrying around a lot of weight and there are practical issues that sometimes get in the way of an all-around pleasant demeanor.

Last night I decided to go to the grocery store. I love getting out of the house now that I work at home and I was very much looking forward to this grocery store trip, as pathetic as that may sound. Things started off well in the produce section, got a little trickier as I nearly rammed my shopping cart into people in the cramped aisles (qualities I never possessed while not pregnant, such as gracefulness, have eluded me further the bigger I have become) and by the time I realized, while in the dairy aisle, that I had forgotten to pick up salsa, and that salsa was all the way on the other side of the store, and was thinking do we really need salsa for tacos, I was undeniably grumpy. So when I finally found the salsa and saw that the kind I wanted was on the bottom shelf, and that required bending way over which was a) not easy for me physically and b) undoubtedly an unattractive position for a person in my current state, I was thinking, “You know what? WHAT AM I EVEN DOING HERE AND WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE ME?”

Having finished my shopping I was overjoyed to get out of there, but while waiting to pay in the checkout line, both the cashier and bagger began talking to me. I stiffened for a second, as though it might be possible to physically repel their advances with my unwilling body and mind, because couldn’t they see I wanted - needed - to go home? But before I knew it I was smiling and happily telling them that it was a girl and that, yes, it was my first and that I was due in one week, to which they replied “One week!” and wished me the very best of luck.

And just like that, the world was a joyful place again. I’m used to my emotions flip-flopping so much as of late. Setting off for a long walk, for instance, because I feel amazing and hopeful and good and then, half-way through, coming to grips with the fact that my suddenly exhausted body is sometimes difficult to manage, and wondering how much more of this I can take. Luckily, those moments are fleeting and something like my talk with the grocery store employees or relaxing in our cozy house with a good book, because I’m pregnant, and you are certainly allowed to relax, restores my sense of calm.

When I left the store I stepped out into the cool air, loaded my bags into the trunk and upon getting into the driver’s seat realized that J had installed a base for our car seat in the back of my Hyundai and somehow I hadn’t noticed it until now. That, I thought, is where the baby will go. She is coming soon, and I can wait. I will happily continue struggling to bend over, rolling onto all fours when I need to get myself out of bed to waddle to the bathroom three or four times a night and I will go through 3,000 hours of labor and do whatever the doctors tell me to do, so that we can meet her.

This afternoon, after deciding that if I was going to have vanilla frozen yogurt, for Christ’s sake, I at least deserved a few M&Ms on top, I opened the freezer to discover that the pound bag I’d bought a long time ago, way in the beginning of my pregnancy, was nearly empty, and so, with due ceremony, I finished them.

It’s official. I have been pregnant for 17 million years.