I don't even know how many weeks I am anymore guys. I lost count somewhere around a thousand. What I do know is that these days, anytime someone calls me and I don't pick up, they leave me an excited voicemail asking, "ARE YOU HAVING A BABY?!"
Sadly, I'm not.
I'm never having a baby.
I haven't had one. Single. Baby.
And at this point, I'm starting to think there may actually be four or five inside me.
Don't ask me how they missed them in the ultrasounds.
These babies are ninjas.
But on a serious note, there's something I've been putting off telling y'all for a while now. I'm not actually having a baby. I know this probably comes as a shock to those of you who are still naive and pure of heart, and still believe that pregnancy ends in labor, which, in turn, ends in the birth of a baby. But as those of us who are a thousand weeks pregnant can tell you, babies are not born into this world. It is simply not the reality we live in.
I was once like you. I used to call Daniel in a desperate panic and have him fly home from shoots in New Orleans when I had 10 contractions in an hour, because I, too, believed in labor. But not anymore. I have become, as my sister Haley so aptly coined it, a Labor Atheist. Contractions are meaningless. I've been having them for weeks now, and sometimes they are painful and come every two to four minutes. But now, I just ignore them. Fool me once, contractions, shame on you. But until a baby physically comes out of me, I will believe no more of this poppycock about "labor" and "birth". What's that you say? There's a puddle of amniotic fluid on the floor? Ignore that. It's nothing. It, too, is meaningless.
Now that we've established that I am not having, nor will I ever have a baby, let's talk about why I've fallen off the face of the earth.
The real reason have been missing so many calls from my loved ones is because I spend an insane amount of time napping. Most women report that in this stage of pregnancy it's almost impossible for them to get any sleep at all, so I'm not complaining. But I do have (sort of) good news for those women: it doesn't matter. No matter how much sleep I get, I'm still a total zombie when I'm awake. The only difference is that I get to enjoy long bouts of unconsciousness, and that helps the time pass. You could achieve the same effect by hitting yourself over the head with a frying pan occasionally, if you were so inclined.
Every so often, though, I will have one really good day where I will experience a burst of energy. The cycle has gotten to be pretty predictable. I usually have about two or three down days, followed by a day of feeling normal, and then two or three more down days followed by a day of raving lunacy.
On one such occasion last week, I woke up at 6:30 am, baked banana bread from scratch for breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, washed and folded all our laundry, sewed some pennants for Leland's room, made some thank you tags and bows for the goodie bags I'm assembling for the birth team, (this was before I'd given up all hope,) cooked homemade soup, and wrote, addressed and mailed all our thank you notes.
Another time, after catching up on some basic chores I'd fallen way, way behind on, I vacuumed our entire house, including many of the walls, (not a joke,) mopped the floors, and crawled around the perimeter of several rooms with cleaning spray and a sponge scrubbing all the baseboards. I'm not going to say I felt great that night. Or for several days afterwards. Or even that I will ever fully recover. But I'd been lying around on the couch for days at that point, staring at the dirt, silently seething and plotting my victory over it. So when I collected enough strength to do something about it, I showed no restraint.
Each time I finish one of these cycles, I get exceedingly desperate for Leland to come quickly. Because if birth really does exist, and it happens during the part where I haven't touched a dish for days and no one in the house has any clean underwear left, I'm just not sure what we're going to do.
That's about all I've got for today. If I keep being pregnant right through Thanksgiving, I might have some pictures of the crib to post soon. If not, I'm probably just going to post pictures of Leland's face at the rate of 12 per hour for the rest of my life and not bother setting up the crib until he's about six months old.
My sweet friend Roseanna Hatton hand-sewed these sweet little fox and owl pillows for Leland. Roseanna is also pregnant, and her baby girl (Leland's girlfriend,) Lyla is due on December 13th. We are so, so excited to meet sweet Lyla Grace soon!
