Race!

It turns out there is a perfectly good reason why it suddenly became difficult to reach my shoes and my back keeps yelling at me - despite being 33 weeks pregnant, my fundal height is about 38cm (it should be same as the number of week +/- 3). No wonder everyone keeps being surprised that my due date is at the end of August.

At my visit with my doctor yesterday, she essentially told me to have my bag packed for the hospital and be ready at any time. My uterus can only stretch so far and at some point it is going to decide it is done. And that may be really soon. Really soon. I'm having noticeable Braxton Hicks contractions as well, which may mean a whole lot of nothing, but may mean my uterus really is getting tired of all this.

I've decided to be somewhat superstitious about it - this weekend, I'm going to wash all the baby cloths and pack the hospital bag and install the carseat and get the diapers ready. I've also agreed to go to the far away clinic - I'm supposed to transition my care to a proper Ob/Gyn because I am now high risk, but the convenient person can't see me for another two weeks. Instead, I'll drive all the way across town (twice a week from here on out) so I can transition my care sooner. If we are ready and I make all these inconvenient doctor appointments, baby must decide to wait for at least another month, right?

Unfortunately, I can't get my defense done faster, which is the real inconvenience if baby decides to come early. I won't have everyone in the same room for two more weeks. And a large number of other things which presume I'm going to graduate right quick have started to get set - a post-defense party date has been set by my adviser, a postdoctoral position start date has been set by the project manager, which means the last day to submit my document has been set (Aug 14, which is wickedly soon, ack). All this presumption that I am going to be finished still seems premature to me, but has to be made if I'm going to actually pull all this together.

And, so, I will try to pull it all together as fast as possible. I'm already getting some comments back from one committee member, so I will try to get those incorporated before the defense. Another committee member has also promised them "soon". I think I will put together my defense talk first thing next week, too.

Forward!