42 days to go? Until I have a baby?

A while back, I signed up for BabyCenter‘s “Your Pregnancy” updates. I think it was when I couldn’t remember if I was 27 or 28 weeks. Now I am 34 weeks and I just noticed that the header on this week’s email also shouts: “42 days to go!”

42 days? You have got to be kidding me. And that was yesterday. Now it’s 41 until the estimated due date. Somehow 6 weeks sounds longer.

There is still so much to do — work stuff (freelance for pay, volunteer work, and writing I promised myself I would send out before the baby came); house projects; and a whole lot of wrapping my head around a homebirth VBAC. But most of all, there remains insufficiently addressed the hugely scary idea of even just being able to cope with a newborn on  little sleep and with a 4-year-old who, fabulous though he is, drives me crazy when we’re together, just the two of us, on these long summer days.

I am really hoping his sister arrives at least 3 days late so that I can make use of the last days of big brother’s day camp. But who knows how we’re going to manage when he’s home unscheduled after that, baby or no.

Wow, 41 days. I’ve had menstrual cycles longer than that. Can’t I press the pause button? What was I thinking back in November when this all started? Yikes!