Pregnancy Diary Week 37: Full Term

Week 37

We've done it. We're there. 37 weeks. We have reached the point of watermelon. There are no more fruit based analogies on offer. The baby is now considered "full term". He's cooked and just plumping up in there, using the time to rest and relax, watch movies, read magazines, brush up on his French. Technically the baby could come any day now. But it could also be another 5 weeks. So precise is the science of due dates that this handy 35 day window is really the best they can offer. Great. This is a bit of a head f*ck for me. This window seems particularly vast given that my due date is bang on mid-month, which means that the baby could conceivably arrive in late August or early October. Literally seasons apart. We would be consulting entirely different versions of the Boden catalogue for his newborn clothing inspiration. Mind blown. He could be an analytic and deep thinking Virgo, or an amiable and level headed Libra. Because star signs are fact. Being due this time of year also brings the possibility that he will be one of the last to sneak into the school year and always be one of the youngest, or be one of the oldest in the following year. Much of that is fairly inconsequential, despite all the scaremongering about youngest and oldest children and the flurry of teachers eagerly shagging at Christmas to conceive a September baby with guaranteed intellectual superiority (NB the research paints a much more complex picture). This is just another unknown on which to procrastinate. My current most indulged pastime. However, these varying possibilities only highlight the time stretching ahead of me and add to my current, and very natural sense of uncertainty. In some ways I feel really ready and if the baby arrives tomorrow we would mostly be in good shape. The car seat is in, the cot is built, the birth pool has arrived, the hospital bag is packed (just in case), I have purchased coconut water (yes really, my recent prep frenzy was pretty detailed). But I am still finding it very difficult to get my head around the fact that we will soon have another baby. I still have a tonne of work to finish before signing off from my job in a week, despite mentally having checked out weeks ago. I'm also struggling to come to terms with the whole pushing out the vagina thing, which feels a bit more concrete second time round, whether positively or negatively so I can't quite decide. Something about knowing I have done it before makes it feel more doable, but at the same time acknowledging that every labour and birth is different means that it is no less unknown. The thing is, it doesn't really matter if I'm ready or not as the baby will come in his own sweet time and whenever and however it happens we will have our baby. That thought is pretty incredible so I really need to relax and focus on that, and just ride the rest of this pregnancy ride however long it lasts.