I'm done.

As of Tuesday at 12:30 pm or so, I finished submitting all my final grades. That means I'm done. The semester is completely over, and I have no additional work responsibilities until next August. No more class prep. It's all baby prep now.

Or at least it should be. At some point I'm supposed to get blindsided by a "nesting" instinct that is going to make me go crazy cleaning and making sure everything is perfectly ready for baby's arrival. But so far, all I've been doing is loafing around the house in an ill-fitting robe, drinking vanilla caramel tea and reading a novel on my Kindle. 

I'm definitely aware of baby. I know that his arrival is imminent. His movements feel like he's stretching inside me. You know how you wake up in the morning and stretch? That's what he does. I can feel the bulk of his body parts rolling up against the inside of me. I can look down at my belly and watch it literally move, pulse, poke out and roil. He's in there. He is a living being who is inside of my body, making his presence known. 

But for some reason, I just can't fathom giving birth. Like, I know logically that he's going to come out of there somehow, but it seems like it's not going to happen. Whenever anything changes about your life you sort of adjust to it, usually. Right now, I don't think of my pregnancy as this temporary state with a purpose—incubating a human in order to add one more member to the planet's population—I think of it as these gradual changes in my body that I've just grown accustomed to. Well, with the exception of feeling the baby move. I don't think I will ever get used to that.

I can't picture myself as a sweaty woman writhing in pain, straining to push a baby out. I can't see myself as that. I guess kind of like when I couldn't see myself as an obviously pregnant woman with a big old baby bump poking out. When are you due? Do you know whether it's a boy or girl? Do you have any names picked out? The questions now flow forth in more or less that order. Apparently, according to some expert observers, I'm "all baby." In other words, I don't look like I've gotten significantly fatter aside from the baby bump. Thanks. I guess.

I am in love. I can't stop looking at the pictures of my son. My son who looks like me. My son who is a part of me. I know he looks like me, or at least my side of the family, but I suspect there may still be some possible surprises in store. We still don't know what his hair or eye color will be. The odds are that both will be brown, but I have a secret hope that he has red hair. Not fire engine red, but that coppery red. The Irish might decide to pop out there, who knows? I also really want him to have at least one dimple, like his dad. I guess we'll find out in a little over a month from now.

Coffee Shop Musings at 33 Weeks

I gave my last final yesterday. I still have to grade my final exams. I'm at a coffee shop trying to stay out of my husband's hair because he has a Skype interview this afternoon. I don't want to even be near when the interview is going down because I feel like he needs absolute me time and I don't want my presence to add to his stress.

Right before I gave my last final, the last final I will give until next fall, my students presented me with a thank you card. It had a picture of a pear on the front and on the inside they all signed it around a message that said "You and JoJo will make a perfect 'pear'." I held it together, but it was so sweet and unexpected. It really felt like the perfect last day.

Speaking of JoJo, one tiny mystery of my son's existence has been solved: How does he look? Who does he look like? I had a growth scan Wednesday, and the technician got some freakishly clear images of my son's face. He is undoubtedly, unequivocally my son:

His baby face. His baby nose, baby lips, baby cheeks. This is who I will be bringing into the world in about 7 weeks, give or take. He has a name. He has a face. A Bernini sculpture of a baby face. What is he thinking about, dreaming about, in his dark, warm world? He moves in me, alive. He is mine.

Grading is boring. I really hate grading. How are you going to be a professor and hate to grade? Like, it's one-third of my whole job. These exams are the last thing I will have to grade for 8 months. What are exams, grades, the strokes of a red pen when you have a beautiful human inside of you?

I read a terrible article yesterday. Actually, I read part of a terrible article because I couldn't bring myself to get through the rest of it. Black women die from childbirth and childbirth-related complications at three times the rate of white women. Well, the article itself wasn't terrible, but the facts it related are and the story it centers upon is heartbreaking. As with other outraging, disgusting race-related things that are realities in our world, I'm kind of over extensively expressing my feelings about them. It's tiring. JoJo's going to wear me out when he comes on the scene. I have to reserve my energy for him.

My husband. This man who is already over the moon about our son. He's a methodical man. When he prepares, he thoroughly prepares. He doesn't do off-the-cuff. He is a perfectionist. He reserves his harshest criticism for himself. My husband. This man who loves profoundly and steadfastly. He is earnest, sincere, sensitive and strong. This man whose child I have inside me. We, in a human imitation of God, created a being in our own image. A living soul who will breathe the breath of Life. I want to fully grasp who my husband is, especially in the mornings when he's still asleep beside me, radiating heat. I know him and I love what I know. But there are parts of him beyond me, that will always elude my grasp, that I will never be able to hold up to the light and examine like a precious stone. We are one, but he is still a singular person who exists apart from me. It's strange to ponder how our wildly divergent paths crossed, the events in our lives that led to us meeting, then joining. There's still something unbelievable, wonderful and strange about it to me. Why did we decide to take such a chance on each other? Sitting at the table eating leftover spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that I married a good man and that we're starting a family together. At one time, I desired those things. At one time, I was afraid those things were somehow unattainable for someone like me. I hope I never get to the point where I take these fulfilled desires for granted.