I'm 30 weeks pregnant this week, which, to put the number in perspective, is out of 40, total. I'm having a new feeling as of late, and it's not exactly bad, and it's not physical - except for the occasional backache and feeling tired on busier days and, oh, you know, feeling a little bit like whale sometimes, I feel good. The new feeling is kind of more like, "Oh my God, pregnancy lasts a long time" which is tough to admit, now, when I've still got ten weeks left. I know, I know, they'll fly and I'll find myself pacing the nursery (read: third bedroom upstairs with tons of boxes on the ground and all the clothes that used to fit me stuffed in the closet) in a frenzy because we don't have enough time left, but right now, I'm getting pretty excited about meeting this baby. What does she look like? What does she like to do, besides hanging out up under my ribs?

I'm almost afraid to admit thoughts like these as of late. I guess I'm worried that someone will say something like "If you're saying that now then JUST WAIT until the last month..." even though I'm not saying I feel bad or annoyed or sick of all this, not at all, just that I feel, well, that it's been a pretty long haul and I'm kind of shocked when I realize I still have a couple months to go. Maybe it's one of those things best uttered in retrospect, kind of like when I tell people how much I loved high school, a truth better to admit after the fact.

And anyway, when I get down to it, I know how little this slight impatience matters overall because I realize two things, really. One, is that despite "the end" being a period lasting weeks and weeks, I am in the final stretch, technically speaking. I mean, there are only three trimesters, and I've covered one and two.

The second thing, of course, is that I've got to enjoy this last part as much as is possible because as exciting as meeting this baby is going to be - ridiculously exciting - I won't be pregnant anymore once that happens (um, obviously). And the stuff like having people ask me how I'm feeling all the time, and genuinely meaning it, which is so nice, and sleeping on the new pregnancy pillow my father sent me (which might be, I'm barely exaggerating here, the best invention in the world), will be things of the past. Not that I'm going to care, at that point, but for now, I seem to be allowed all these indulgences, and when I think about how my unstifled love affair with ice cream is only going to last ten more weeks, well, that's quite a different story.