After this post I’m putting a moratorium on the use of the words “baby,” “pregnancy,” “labor,” and the like in my blog until a yet-to-be-determined time in the future. In case it has escaped anyone’s notice, I’m quite aggravated by the fact that this baby hasn’t arrived yet, and I’m having a hard time not turning any pregnancy-related discussion into a rant of one sort or another. Even by the most conservative calculations, which put me due this coming Sunday, this is now the longest pregnancy of my life and there is something Just. Not. Right.™ about that for a third pregnancy.

Some of my complaint has to do with physical discomfort, of course, but even worse is the feeling that this summer is slipping away unused because I’m too great with child to take full advantage of it. Poor Lydia is paying the highest price — not only are we not able yet to take the out-of-town trips we’d promised her until after the baby comes, but for the past week or so she hasn’t even been able to have any friends overnight or to make any plans more than a day ahead of time. It will be hassle enough–now that this pregnancy has stretched all the way through Olof’s mom’s vacation and on to the other side–getting our own kids and dogs sorted out if I should go into labor in the middle of the night, and we don’t need the added element of someone else’s kid thrown into the mix, so it’s best not to risk it. And of course, with every day that passes the excuse of “the baby could come any time” that I’ve been trotting out for close to two weeks wears that much thinner.

Also diminishing with each passing day, unfortunately, is the remainder of Olof’s vacation. Nearly half of the time he scheduled off has passed, and still no baby. When we planned out our summer, we decided that it would be ideal if he stopped working June 25 (the very earliest the baby could come), and stayed off for six weeks. That way we would have a week or two for day trips, general relaxation, and last-minute baby preparations, then a full month for settling in to life as a three-kid family before returning to the daily grind. As it stands now, however, we’ve got just barely more than three weeks of “adjustment time” left, and that’s if I have the baby tonight. (Yes, yes, I know that his vacation is extremely generous by American standards and that most families get barely more than what we were planning for one parent, let alone both, to be home after the arrival of a new baby, but it still irks me to no end that we’ve wasted so many days just sitting around waiting, waiting, waiting.)

So, anyway, that’s where we stand. I’ll still be posting, of course, but don’t expect any more mention of my lady-in-waiting status until after the blessed event. The policy is to be that no news is just that, no news … I promise that when we finally have the good news, I’ll post it straightaway. Until then, you’re all stuck waiting right along with me.