The Connection Runners

Patience may be a virtue, but it certainly is not a virtue in my repertoire.

Being the naïve, routine, yet mostly impatient person that I am, I thought winter would bring with it a baby for me today, seeing as how it's my due date and all.

Duh. Babies are supposed to arrive on their due dates for people like me, despite the fact that I've read something like less than 10% actually do just that.

And, unless a magical unicorn sprinkles speedy delivery dust on me in the next 10 hours, I don't think my kid will be arriving today. Instead, I'll use today to ponder just how I went from this...

to this...

in what has been somehow the shortest and longest 40 weeks of my life.

And now it looks like I'm headed into Week 41. Yesterday's check-up didn't yield much news in the dilation department, so my doctor had me schedule another appointment for Wednesday to conduct an ultrasound and fetal non-stress test.

If the baby's still marinating by the end of next week, we'll talk induction options, which I'm certainly not against. Though some people are content to be pregnant forever, I'm not one of them. I'm like a bad female version of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino right now, ready to yell at kids for playing on my lawn and generally sniveling at every minor annoyance that comes my way.

I also could spend some time today reading through this stack of helpful books that my friend Jenna graciously let me borrow, but I fear that my curmudgeonly attitude might act as a barrier to any lessons I may actually glean from them.

Or perhaps I could fold and refold the newborn and 0-3 month clothes that have been packed in the diaper bag for two weeks now to ensure that each outfit has maximum foldability, whatever that is.

Or I could arrange and rearrange the toys, stuffed animals, and books that are currently playing house by themselves in the nursery.

They look so darn happy, but I kind of want to throatpunch that giraffe right now.

This crabbiness mostly stems from:

• for the past three weeks, the lack of a good night's sleep.
• the hobble-limp-hobble style of walking I've adapted due to a sore back and left hip that almost caused me to rent a motorized scooter at the mall on Tuesday. No joke.
• a diminishing pool of wit and good humor with which to respond to questions like "Still pregnant?" or "How are you feeling?" People will surely call me crazy when I honestly respond with, "Yes, I'm still pregnant and oh-by-the-way I feel like that kid Augustus Gloop from Willy Wonka. You know, the rotund boy who gets stuck up that tube in the chocolate river? All he wants is to get out of the tube and keep eating chocolate and enjoying his excessive German life. The pressure on his fat little body is immense, yet he has to wait for the Oompa-Loompas to come out and taunt him by singing an ironic song. Maybe once those orange-faced little bastards come rolling through my neighborhood with a catechismal little ditty for me, I'll be able to pop out this child, and we'll all be happier for it."

• running a marathon that has no mile markers or finish line in sight with only plain GU for fuel
• sitting down to take a bar examination for the third time in a row only to be told that it has to be postponed due to a testing site building problem
• driving through Ohio on the way to the Florida Keys (sorry, Ohioians, it's just a really boring drive)
• watching the "last 10 minutes of a football game" with your husband, which you know is never, ever just 10 minutes

So, crankiness aside, I'm so ready for her to be here already. The hospital bags are packed, the car seat is installed, and lots of people are waiting to bask in LBA/Ampersand/Regis/Lola/Samantha/Cilantro's itty-bitty baby glory (yes, she's acquired quite a few nicknames these last weeks).

Come on out, Baby A, and meet the world!