You Ain't Going Nowhere.
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Pregnancy
Okay, Gretchen. Look at the tattoo on your lower belly, for which you will need a complicated system of mirrors, and read aloud. Om. Omm. Ommmmmm. The Coochie Doc says this baby ain't going anywhere any time soon, and mommy is just going to have to chill her big fat ass out.

It was a most unproductive conversation, but not an unfamiliar one. Not unfamiliar, because I had the same conversation with my former, retired Coochie Doc once in mid-2001 and once late in 2002. But definitely unproductive.

Me: Me = done being pregnant.

Coochie Doc: Nonsense. You're only 36 weeks.

Me: But. Isn't my blood pressure high? Do I have toxemia? Don't you need to induce me?

Coochie Doc: A little high, yes, but your urine is clear as a bell. You're fine. Lots of amniotic fluid. Heatbeat sounds great.

Me: But! Swollen!

Nurse: Ha. That's nothing. We get people in here with ankles swollen up as big as your calves.

Me: But! I'm FAT.

Nurse: Well, of course you feel fat, dear. You're pregnant.

Me: I want her OUT.

Nurse and Coochie Doc [smiling indulgently]: See you in a week.

Me: Fat. Still pregnant. SHIT.

I will go to the Orange County Fair this weekend, and I will walk and walk and walk. I will sexually assault my husband, although I fear intercourse is a physical impossibility unless we enlist the aid of teleportation and/or mechanical apparati. I will do jumping jacks. (If I do, they will register on the Richter Scale.)

But mostly I will bide my time and aspire to be Buddhalike in my fatness, because I know from experience that none of these things will make a whit of difference. When it comes to this birth and its timing, Julia Rose Kathleen Crumpacker is definitely the boss of me.