coming into the home stretch.

The longer this pregnancy progresses, the worse I am about writing updates. I suck. I super suck. There's so much I want to say - need to say - and to be honest, I can't even claim carpal tunnel pain anymore because the cortisone injections that the nice orthopedic doctor gave me a few weeks back have made a world of difference.

So.

Here's the quick and dirty update:

I'm officially being induced on Sunday, 11/15, at 9 p.m. We'll start with a Foley catheter that night; they said it should fall out by morning, when they'll start pushing pitocin. (Guess who's got two thumbs and is definitely getting an epidural?)

We're inducing because of the myriad of medical issues I've battled this pregnancy. That, and because apparently the Jellybean has a pretty big head. This, coupled with my somewhat narrow pelvis (who knew?), means that I might not be able to squeeze the kid out my vag. Dr. Direct has been really clear that if the baby's head doesn't descend, I'll be converted to a c-section. I'm maintaining the position I've had all along: I don't care how he's born, as long as he comes out healthy.

As for me:

I'm good. Mostly good. I still have some numbness and stiffness in my hands, and sleep has been harder to come by. I tend to wake up in the middle of the night and then stay awake for an hour or two before crashing again - my body getting ready for the baby? But overall, the third trimester has been a cake walk compared to the hell I went through in the second.

People keep asking me if I'm ready. I am and I'm not. We were so convinced that baby boy was coming early that I got a ton of stuff squared away weeks ago - made a month's worth of freezer meals, got the car seat base installed at the DMV, ordered my breast pump, created my maternity leave plan for work, etc. I haven't packed my labor bag yet but everything's in a box waiting to be Tetris'd into my duffle.

But that's just stuff. Stuff is easy, relatively speaking. Emotionally, I think I'm ready, but there are times when I realize that in less than two weeks there's going to be a tiny human living in my house. A tiny human that I am responsible for. I AM HAVING A BABY. Holy fuck balls.

So, that's where I am. Holding steady. Looking forward to meeting our little dude and simultaneously fearing that I will somehow break him in the first 48 hours of his life. That's normal, right?

motherless child, childless mother.

Is it me, or is everyone going extra-special crazy this Mother's Day?

Maybe I just didn't notice it last year. I had to work Mother's Day weekend. It was the first without my own mom and came on the heels of two failed IVF cycles, so working was like the best distraction ever.

There are a lot of motherless people in my life. Mr. Hope. My aunt. Some long-distance friends. Facebook acquaintances. This day tends to be hard for all of them.

I thought I'd feel different this year. This year, I am a mother-to-be. But it's weird. Even though this is the first Mother's Day that I am an actual mother (remember, never so much as had a pregnancy prior to last November), I am still just me. I feel slightly uncomfortable over all of the maternal outpouring. This is pretty much how I've felt even prior to my IF diagnosis, when motherhood was something I longed for and thought was only out of reach due to timing and circumstance.

Part of me hoped that my husband would make a big deal out of today. That instead of giving me his annual card from the dog, I'd get one that referred to our tiny human. There should be flowers, I thought. Some sort of sweet gift, maybe a silly onesie or a magnet that referred to me as Mom.

I didn't really tell him I was hoping for hoopla. When we were purchasing cards for the other mothers in our lives, I said something like, "You know, technically this is my first Mother's Day." He bought me a card while I was with him, which kind of sucked.

Maybe he'll surprise me. He often does.

I feel like I sound so spoiled here. I am so lucky. There is a presumably healthy baby baking in my belly. It's what I've wanted for so long, what I've tried for in earnest over the span of 4+ years. I know so many other women who haven't made it this far yet, whose longing runs every bit as deep as mine. I am grateful that we are where we are. I honestly never thought we'd get here.

But I guess I'm just sad that I don't feel less sad. Does that make sense? We're going to visit family today. We're going to tell some of the most important people in our lives about Jellybean. This is huge. And once we get the results of our MaterniT21 test next week, confirming that our baby looks healthy by all counts, we'll tell Mini-Hope. After she's in the know, we can go public.

Maybe that will be the turning point. When this will start to feel more real. Or maybe it's when we first hear the heartbeat? Or maybe I just need the results of that test.

I am possibly buying a crib off Craigslist. It's a white, four-way convertible with good reviews. You can get it brand-new for $220 and the woman is listing it for $120, but I talked her down to $90 because there are scratches on the top. I don't really care about the scratches, but I'm thinking if I can save money on certain things then I'll have more money for the top-of-the-line car seat/stroller combo I want, and a really comfy nursing chair.

At any rate: I am making plans. I am moving forward. I have stopped fearing that I will lose this child every single second of every single day. All good things.

So why am I not happier today? I want to be, honestly.

Maybe I just need to stay off Facebook for the next 24 hours.

nesting.

I've always been a very deadline-driven person. Once Mr. Hope and I made the decision to go into this cycle, I knew there was a clock running on how long we had to get certain things in order. Like our house.

Our HOUSE.

We have a 3BR, 1BA (yes, ONE) rancher that I purchased prior to even meeting Mr. Hope. It was supposed to be my 3- to 5-year "starter" home, but I read this article years ago about a family who didn't buy up, they just put their money into upgrading the small home they already had. Theirs was paid off when friends who had bigger houses were drowning in debt. Mr. Hope and I were like YES, THIS IS WHAT WE WANT, TOO.

But guys, come ON. One bathroom? ONE? And it's a teeny-tiny one at that.

So now the tentative plan is to sell in (you guessed it!) three to five years. But first, we need to put some serious elbow grease into the place.

We've been purging crap for years. Literally, years. I come from a line of borderline hoarders. So does Mr. Hope. Together, our crap proliferated. Now, during our third year of purging (fourth year?) we are almost - ALMOST - there.

Last week I got an estimate on fixing the walls in two rooms of our house. The elevator version is that the original owners of this house put wallpaper on bare drywall, and subsequent owners painted over it, and when some of the paper started bubbling up I peeled to see what was underneath. So there are two rooms that have patchy walls that need to be fixed and I am NOT paying someone to remove the paper. It would be cheaper to replace the drywall!

But I digress.

Yesterday Mr. Hope and I spent a lot of time in the third bedroom. The room that started off as my office, became his office, and will at some point become a bedroom for Future Baby. (We still don't call it a nursery, because I can be superstitious like that.) The plan is to paint it a rich navy, which is gender-neutral but also works as an office color. Before we can get to painting, though, we need to clear it out so we can hire the men that will make the walls suitable for painting in the first place.

The scarier clock is on the furniture. When I first bought this house, I purchased two vintage pieces from the 1940s that are the perfect size for Future Baby (including a dresser that is the ideal height for a changing table). The problem is that the people who owned the set before me painted the pieces avocado green. They painted the vintage hardware a cheap gold. And they didn't paint ANY of it very well. Plus, it was at one time this gorgeous maple.

So Mr. Hope and I are testing an eco-friendly paint stripper to see what's underneath. And if it's worth stripping everything, or if we want to just want to repaint it all.

(Here I must confess that I have already decorated the nursery room in my mind. It is navy and coral and aqua with burnished gold accents. And if Future Baby turns out to be a boy instead, it is navy and kelly green and butter yellow. And if we get really lucky, and end up with Twin Future Babies, then the whole plan is shot to shit because the room is way too small for multiples. On the upside, my office is Tiffany blue, which could make for a very nice nursery bedroom regardless.

EZ Diet update: As of this morning, I'm down 7.2 lbs. In less than a week. Tomorrow will be the official one-week mark so YAY for that and YAY for it not being nearly as hard as I thought it would be.