33 weeks and .... CANKLES.

Yep. It has happened. They told me it would, but I didn't believe it. My legs, arms, nose, cheeks, fingers, and toes have filled with water. I gained almost ten pounds this week... and I can tell you that it wasn't from eating since I've resumed my old habit of giving food back to the earth and hating most food.

I took this picture Friday (4 days ago) when I *thought* I had swollen feet and legs.

I took this tonight. Whaaa...

31 weeks

I am growing a human inside me, and have found that the bigger the baby gets, the bigger I get. This is actually not a significant shock to me, given that I was born and raised in the land of Make-Some-Baby.

Back here, however, people seem genuinely surprised that a) I am gestating at this exceedingly young age of 32,* and b) that I have gained more than 5-10 pounds** in the process. And unlike the land of Make-Some-Baby, where it's customary (or at least common) for people to politely act astonished when you tell them you're pregnant (What? You couldn't possibly be 9 months along... you look practically anorexic!), people around here don't mind telling me how large and awkward I look. Almost everybody in my department has commented on how HUGE my belly is, several people have asked if I'm due in the next calendar week, and at least three people have asked if I'm having twins. I don't mind these comments and for the most part, am just amused. Luckily I've known enough pregnant women in my life to know that I could very possibly gain another 30 pounds before harvest time.

Baby Girl kicks and moves as much as ever. She wakes up at about 5:00 every morning and wiggles and wriggles and tickles inside me. Today she has her head on one side of my abdomen and her bum on the other side. I keep patting her bum, and she sticks it out and wiggles it in return.

I'm starting to conceptualize (a little more) that we're having a baby, and I'm getting really impatient for her to be born. I'm so grateful that I get to have a baby - for a long time it seemed like an elusive, unobtainable dream that would never actually happen. Now that it is, I find myself almost overcome with gratitude at times. I'm so excited, and so is Tim. The other day Tim mentioned that he needed to get life insurance so that if he "passes on," we'll be taken care of. I of course started crying at the thought of him passing on, and he of course thought it was time for me to go to bed and get some sleep. I'm so happy about our little family, and I will scalp anybody who tries to take it away from me.

At our appointment yesterday, our nurse practitioner let us listen to the heartbeat for an extra long time. She said the baby is "growing beautifully." And she may have mentioned that I'm huge.

* From what I can tell, it is considered irresponsible out east to consider having a baby before you have a 401K, six-figure income, and summer house on cape cod.

** From what I can tell, it is considered irresponsible out east for women to have more than 7% body fat.