International Space Station

As of Saturday, I’ll be 37 weeks pregnant, and I found out at my OB visit today that the baby is at “zero station”(!) His or her head is nestled down all nice and cozy in my pelvis—a position my first baby didn’t reach until the day before I delivered her. My cervix isn’t effaced or dilated, so it’s not like I’m going to deliver tomorrow or anything—but with some luck this baby won’t be coming ten days late.

I’m more than a little panicked about what we’re going to do with the two-year old when I do go into labor, as it’s been predicted by reliable sources (a Magic 8-Ball at Goodwill and my beloved obstetrician) that this time around everything is likely to go “very quickly.” Though our two-year-old is a tremendously good sport, I’m not sure how well she’d handle being pawned off on a random nurse in the maternity ward while mama shoots a baby out her vagina in a room down the hall.

It had been my hope and plan to have a babysitter in place by now—one who would be able to be bribed into being on-call throughout the month of April, including in the middle of the night—but so far no luck. Sittercity, it turns out, is a lot like Match.com. Generally speaking the people that you're interested in aren't interested back, and the people that are interested in you aren't your type.

photo courtesy morgueFile