My birthing instructor seems to have trouble with the word “vagina”. Everything else is referred to by the correct medical term, but when she has to talk about the part of my body that will actually do all the effacing and dilating and stretching, she cannot bring herself to say the word. Instead she calls it my “bottom”.

If it turns out I actually give birth through my bottom, I HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY MISINFORMED.

Me: (wallowing around like a beached whale) Oh my goooooooooooooooood I am so pregnant!
E: Yeah, you’re kind of huge.
Me: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! At least it’s not for too much longer.
E: It’s not that soon, you still have four months.
Me: FOUR MONTHS?? Try 10 weeks.
E: Whatever, same thing.
Me: NO. Nononononono, 10 weeks is two and a half months. Not four. Two and a half.
E: I’m rounding.
Me: THERE IS NO ROUNDING.

Even when not pregnant, I found accounts of other people’s labors fascinating. And thanks to the interwebs, there are tons of them out there to read!

Sarrible sent me this one the other day, written by Alice Bradley. She specifically warned me not to read the comments but that’s like me telling the dog “Hey, so I’ve got this steak that I’m just going to put right here on the floor and then I’m going to stare over there at the wall for a while, but you’re not supposed to eat it, ok?” But I’m going to warn you anyways, if you are pregnant or want to someday be pregnant, skip the terror-inducing comments.

Allie the fashion blogger who writes My Wardrobe Today had her baby this month and wrote about it here. It is also slightly scary, but everything ends well and her baby is ADORABLE.

Of course there’s also Dooce’s story, which might be from 2004 and is kind of long but still amazing. I’ve read it about a dozen times now, and will probably have the whole thing memorized by the time my own labor starts.

Anyone have more suggestions? Personal stories encouraged!

Yesterday morning I felt pretty good about this pregnancy thing. No new weird symptoms, no horrible pains, lots of baby kicking and the ability to still wear all three pairs of maternity jeans.

At some point between breakfast and dinner, my stomach exploded. Gone is my happy twitching baby bump, replaced by a giant lung-squeezing bowling ball full of angry monkeys intent on making me wet my pants. I swear in less than 12 hours I have become the stereotypical enormous, waddling, hand-on-the-back pregnant woman who can’t finish a glass of water without running to the bathroom. My belly button is two seconds away from becoming an outie. “Pregnant or just fat?” could only be asked by the most oblivious of insensitive idiots. My secret thoughts about wanting to stay pregnant forever (It’s not so bad! The baby is so easy this way! I’m not one of those women who end up begging to be induced so they don’t suffer one more day!) are long gone. Not only can I no longer get my stretchy-waistband jeans buttoned, I can barely put them on without falling over.  I’ll take a picture for your enjoyment and mocking later.

I discovered at birthing class last night that my lack of lung function makes me kind of light headed, especially when people use words like “episiotomy” and “catheter” and “umbilical prolapse”. I don’t think the animation of the epidural or c-section helped either, but by that point I had closed my eyes and was practicing some of those relaxation breathing techniques the teacher has been encouraging us to try. I’m not normally such a wimp about medical stuff (I am in fact watching a House marathon right now) but since this medical stuff is directly related to both my baby and my delicate lady parts I was in serious danger of passing out, right there in Conference Room B.

And we didn’t get a Fetal Fun Fact – instead we got a Labor Fun Fact, but since my brain was too busy trying to understand the juxtaposition of the words “labor” and “fun” I don’t remember what it was. Probably something really awesome like “If you don’t already have an epidural in place, the doctor does the episiotomy without any pain relief! Don’t worry, you probably won’t feel it because of all the other pain!”

I am not endorsing or encouraging or arranging any actual monetary bets on what day Baby Evan will come – but here’s your post for guesses.

To make things fair, here’s everything that could affect your choice:
My original due date was March 21st (based on our best conception date guess). They changed it to April 1st after the first ultrasound.
At all my appointments since I’ve measured exactly on target for April 1st.
I have zero risk factors or conditions that would cause the doctor to suggest a c-section or induction – at least not that I know of yet.
My mom had all three of her kids late.
Ask almost any mom and she’ll say the first baby always comes late.
My birthing instructor says anything between 38 and 42 weeks is considered normal.
Don’t guess anything later than April 10th. That’s my 27th birthday and I swear to God I am having wine that day, baby or no baby. If I’m still pregnant on the 9th I plan to stand in the middle of labor & delivery screaming my head off until someone pulls this womb invader out.

Here are the guesses so far:
Meghanstrader – March 25th
Lalaland13 – March 27th
Sarrible – March 31st
Other Erin – April 2nd

And my guess is March 30th.

MAKE YOUR GUESSES IN THE COMMENTS!