Have you had that baby yet?

The phone calls have started.

The emails. The twitter messages, the facebook messages, the surreptitious "So... how you doing?" inquiries where people really want to ask "have you had that baby yet!?" but don't want to look like TOTAL jerks, so they just pretend they weren't calling about the baby at all! They're just calling. Innocently and coincidentally.  Every day. 

My OB is starting to make a plan to induce... in two weeks. Just in case. This is because he's on vacation next week so he won't be able to do the planning when he normally would in the usual long procession of pregnancy appointments. But still.  He's planning it all now.  Two weeks before it would even happen.

I'm getting messages saying "4 days left!" referring to my "due date", presumably. Which I like to refer to as "that meaningless date that gives you a target range and not much else". But apparently some like to believe the due date is when you actually give birth. Who knew?

My mother is throwing out "good dates to have a baby" in emails, as if I have any control over the process.

Everyone's starting to chomp at the bit, in other words.

But me? Am I anxious, panicking, nervous, wondering?  Am I inspecting every twinge hoping I'm in labour?

Not in the LEAST.

I'd kind of like to have my body back, to be sure. The belly has definitely started to become a hindrance, especially when she does her alien thing and wedges her entire 7ish pound body on one side so that I no longer know where the edges are and end up slamming into stuff unexpectedly. (If the kid comes out covered with bruises? You'll know why.)  And you know: god, would I love a drink.  But as for freaking out every day thinking when? when? when?? Nah.

This pregnancy will be over soon enough, one way or another. I'm pretty much guaranteed to have a baby within the next 3 weeks or so. And I just don't see the point in wishing the time away.

Don't get me wrong - I totally understand why women do just want their pregnancies over already. I will kindly spare you the details of the various fun symptoms I've put up with for the last few weeks - it's lunchtime somewhere, after all - and I consider myself one of the lucky ones. There are people who've put up with far worse, and for them I hope the labour fairies arrive quickly and give generously from their vats of contraction-inducing magic dust.

But for me? I'm kind of just... content. Baby's coming. I won't be 9 months pregnant with this child ever again. It's a single, special time in our lives, and I see no point in wishing it away. So I'm simply going to enjoy it, savour it.  And roll with it, depending on how long this part lasts.

Everyone else, however, is a different beast entirely. They want this baby to come NOW, and they really want me to know it.

As you can see above.

And all the questions aren't really helping me stay zen. Therefore, in an effort to deflect the nervous energy and get everyone on the same zen page as me, I am going to "borrow" the brilliant concept from the "Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed The World Yet" website and launch my own version to redirect all the traffic: Have you had that baby yet?

Feel free to reuse as necessary. :)

This is an original post to Canada Moms Blog. Shannon whiles away week 39 of pregnancy at ThreeSeven.ca and saves the world at ecochick.ca.