the weeks rush by, peeling months off the calendar faster and faster. my workdays stretch out even longer (and they still don't feel long enough) but each weekday topples into the next one instantaneously like a cascade of dominos. i have a little over seven weeks left until due date, but this deadline looms with the rapidity of something dreaded.

90% of the time, i'm so excited. i've never been quite so eager to meet a person, not even george r.r. martin (though any nerd i kicked or elbowed in my haste to meet him for dinner during san diego comic-con 2014 would testify otherwise). even though i know newborns basically look like tiny old men suffering from allergies, i can't wait to see his puffy, wrinkly face transform into something so recognizable that i'll finally understand why i paid so much blood money for two degrees in genetic science. i can't wait to hear him laugh and pretend it's because he's already really into my cool jokes, and i can't wait to find out if he's got any good ones of his own. i'm psyched to see this fine and funny badboy i married- who is so detached and obfuscating towards the things that don't matter and so deeply committed and enamored with the things that do- read nursery stories to his son.

and y'all, i'm not even going to lie to you. i can't wait to lose weight and wyle out on bottomless mimosa brunches. everyone's out here leaning hard into this mom identity but i just want to feel like myself again, albeit with reorganized priorities that shunt replaying video games while ordering cheetos via amazon prime now delivery to the bottom of the list.

and then there are pockets of time like now, when i wade into the panicky realization that i might never actually feel like myself again, because in a handful of weeks i'll be a parent and there is no backing out of that identity no matter what happens. maybe nothing will ever be the same again and i will remember this beautiful, idyllic life i've had these past couple of years and ask myself jesus christ why did you make another human being you weren't even fully cooked yourself. and maybe my relationship will become difficult or strained, because no one ever talks about marriage improving after the addition of children. ian blithely shrugs off my gloomy predictions, because ian has been confident and optimistic about us since maybe the beginning of time itself- and he's probably right because he's always right, but i'm the one over here thinking about death daily and asking him increasingly stupid hypothetical questions about car accidents, divorce, grief.

what i like to consider as pragmatism is probably just tempered morbidity.

realtalk, i think some things will be amazing and fascinating and some other things will be miserable and painful but we will both still be two badgirls trying our best, as we have always been. i don't exactly know where that goes or how the equation factors out. i'm relinquishing my favorite skill (control) and replacing it with an entirely unknown quantity (¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

on a less heavy note, my pregnancy has proceeded with its characteristic ease. baby sails through every biophysical profile beautifully, i've experienced no symptoms more uncomfortable than achy hips and occasional reflux, and i am sitting still at 19 lbs gained even though i feel like a manatee that has just swallowed another manatee. a unicorn pregnancy, aided by a good little dude who is already in formation- head down and extra wiggly when he hears the law & order gavel sound.

"i still don't really even feel pregnant most of the time," i tell dr. grisham today while he measures my amniotic fluid index. today he is wearing tortoiseshell ombre frames i haven't seen before. "my husband probably thinks i'm just faking it for more food.