As your mother I command you to be born on your due date!

My lungs still feel squeezed for air. My stomach still can't accommodate much food. My belly doesn't really look any different (just bigger, mind you. A lot bigger).

But all of a sudden it feels like the baby's head is bobbing up and down on my bladder! 

Does that mean I've gone through lightening?? Has the baby begun its descent?Or am I just inching closer to the end, which is still four weeks away?

It is so hard to judge the signs of labour - especially when a total lack of experience with this whole birth thing makes you nuts every time you have a "symptom." Rather, every time you THINK you have a symptom. 

"I just had back pain," I'll say to myself, speaking loudly while alone in my office. "Nope. Nope. It's just from sitting in a weird position. Oh right, and I'm wearing heels. That was dumb of me." 

No matter how many times I read the handout from prenatal class - about how to recognize the signs of labour - I still make myself crazy evaluating all the strange twinges, aches and sensations I've begun experiencing as D day approaches. 

Weird leg cramps. Suspicious lower back pain. Having to pee all the frickin'  time. 

I don't honestly believe I won't recognize it when it happens. I'm a living, breathing, (mildly) competent individual (sometimes). I’ll know when I have a contraction and when my water breaks and when there’s “bloody show” (why does it have to be so gross?). Right?

Regardless, I fear I'll wait too long and have to deliver the baby myself in the passenger seat of our car. (This actually happened to a Toronto woman nine years ago - I know because I interviewed her and her adorable daughter in 2007). 

Or, worse - I'll get to the hospital too early and have to sit in the L&D room twiddling my thumbs and wincing in pain for hours and hours. 

Maybe I'm just on edge because whenever I tell anyone I'm 36 weeks pregnant they say "oh, it could be any time now!"

No! No it can't! I'm excited to finally meet the tiny creature that wakes me up at 4 a.m. by threatening to emerge from my belly button (what's left of it). But, I want my last four weeks of freedom!!

I just do. I have projects to finish. One last nice dinner to eat with Ted. Nails that need painting (desperately). A car seat to install for heaven's sake!

So, kid, if you're listening, please come on your due date!

Is this a Jewish thing?

Tell me other people feel this way - please.

To get the baby's room ready, we had to recarpet, repaint and put in new lights. The previous owners of our home left it in pretty bad shape. 

But now it looks great even without any furniture.  A small pile of "things" we've accumulated so far sits in the middle of the room. There's a heap of second-hand plush and squeaky toys.  A stack of one-month sized onesies in plain unisex white. About 12 thick cardboard babybooks. And a blue stuffed octapus that calls out Spanish words when you squeeze any one of its tentacles. 

Sometimes when I'm alone in the house I flick on the lights in the room and just sit there on the carpet. 

If I'm feeling inspired I'll pick up a onesie and marvel at how in less than two months I'll be fastening its tiny snaps around the legs of a wriggly infant. 

And that amazes me. 

Then I get nervous and walk out of the room and shut the door behind me. Maybe it's me, but I'm scared to get too excited about the reality of what's to come before it actually gets here.

Many of my friends have refused to set up the baby's room at all before they've given birth. And among my closest peer group we all reject pre-birth showers. It's bad luck, we think. 

Instead, we throw post-natal parties. 

Maybe it's just a Jewish thing, but once the crib arrives I may have to cover it with a big sheet to be lifted off by my husband only right before we bring the baby home.

Is this superstition mine alone?

I have beef with anti-epidurialism (a term I just made up)

Okay, here's my beef.

I'm a little upset about the epidural lesson in a recent prenatal class.

A quick preface before I get into it: I have nothing but the greatest respect for mothers who choose to have a medication-free, natural birth whether at home, in hospital or somewhere more exotic. I, on the other hand, decided long ago that pain meds are my friend. Epidural? Yes please!

Now, post preface: The class wasn't an unbiased look at ways to reduce labour pain. It was a thinly veiled anti-medication lecture given by a transparently anti-epidural nuse.

"There's a whole culture of epidural out there," she said, as if the same culture condoned eating babies. "And if you turn it down, doctors will whisper 'oh, my god, she turned it down' as if you're crazy."

This nurse described natural childbirth as a smooth road with few curves. She described childbirth with an epidural as a paved road with awkwardly angled turns. Something that produces "loss of control" for the mother (at least it did during the one labour she had with an epidural), it makes labour painfully longer and may cause your tiny newborn to be "unco-ordinated with breastfeeding" indefinitely after birth.

"There's crazy research out there," she said. But when probed didn't know any specifics. And when asked what "unco-ordinated" meant and for how long, she stammered. "Oh, not long and we don't really know," finally conceding it doesn't have any long term effects on the baby.

But to a roomful of frightened mothers and fathers-to-be, her lesson was enough to elicit anxious gasps.

What the nurse failed to mention was that labour is really, really painful - so I've heard - and mothers who can't properly control their pain, don't fare well during labour and that's no good for their emerging babies either. The hospital-produced labour and delivery manual says this.

Also, pain levels don't stay constant. They get worse. And there is nothing wrong with being made comfortable during labour by using safe medication administered by qualified doctors and nurses - if one so chooses.

True, painkillers, such as Demerol and epidural can be scary. They do affect the baby while they're affecting the mom. But that's why you can't get an epidural at home. Only in a hospital where they have all sorts of monitors and again, qualified medical staff.

So I was disappointed by the nurse and the prenatal class. It's each woman's choice about how to manage her pain. And she deserves to learn the unbiased facts before making such an important decision.

So, that's my beef.

Labour = Ice. Something tells me not so much.

I dunno for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicious contractions and ice have little in common.

For one, ice is cold. Contractions have been described to me as pain emanating from the depths of hell.

Ice is wet. Contractions - subtracting the membrane breakage and "waters" flowing - are dry and all consuming.

And lastly, ice is a relatively inert substance. Contractions are volatile. They're meant to be. Mean and ugly and forceful enough to expel a baby from a really small hole.

So, it was to my surprise that the nurse in prenatal class gave each expectant parent - mom and dad-to-be - a bag of ice to hold for one full minute, to see how we deal with pain.

I learned something very important about myself that day. And I'm pretty proud of it. I have no problem squeezing a bag of ice for more than a minute. No sweat. Literally.

But I fearmy stoic display in class - with the ice - will not predict how I'll fare in labour.

"Uhm, this can't be what a contraction feels like, for real," I said, gripping the ice and giving the nurse a "what the hell?!" look.

"Not really," she said. "But this is the only way we're allowed to simulate the pain. Ethically."

Right-o. So, in my first prenatal class I didn't really learn how to calm myself down when the hurt gets nutty. But, I did learn that I have no problem holding a bag of ice.

Good trick at parties, I reckon!

No way. No how. No baby.

Who thought of this ridiculous method of getting them out? Seriously?

I've weighed the facts, conducted a thorough cost-benefit analysis, looked carefully at all of the details and made an important decision: I will not be having this baby.

Birth is too gross. Too humiliating. And from what I can tell right now - still not a full member of this mommy club - too painful.

No way. No how. No baby.

Yes - I feel a bit like a ripening zit that will inevitably have to be popped - by me or a qualified cosmetician. Yes - the Lentil's tiny feet frequently get stuck in my ribs, it feels like, and its kicks have turned from endearing flutters to punchy death blows (kid - what are you doing in there?!). Yes - I would like once again to have a flat (ish) stomach.

But since I began learning about labour and delivery - mandatory reading at my stage in the game (I thought it was prudent to see what I'm in for) - all of the above seem like trifling, petty gripes.

From what I can tell (and to quote my good friend Amy) I have no interest in trying to "squeeze a watermelon through my nostril."

Pictures of a prego's anatomy are frightening to me. There is no way THAT opens up enough to sneak through another person's head! Words like "episiotomy" and "afterbirth" should be banned from the English language altogether, let alone introduced to an anxious, first-time expectant mom. Birth looks too dangerous too. It involves a lot of blood (okay, so our body increases its blood volume to handle losing too much on delivery day), fluid leakage and possible tearing of sensitive, membranous tissues.

Now I've never been a prude (well, I do sorta like doilies), but those areas are private, for goodness sake! A team of people fussing around my bottom end lacks a certain appeal.

When I express my wishes to not to give birth, people have told me not to worry. Some have attemped to calm my nerves by explaining that once the process begins there's really no way to reverse it, so I might as well just go with the flow.

People have also said that my doctors are going to insist I let this child out at some point (maybe because there's a push against overprotective mothers these days?). And that I won't really feel embarrassed or humiliated when the time comes.

They also tell me I'll be quite happy when it's over (except I'll never sleep again). And that there are six billion people on this planet, so this birthing thing has been done, like, you know, many times before and things have worked out A-Okay. 

But, I don't buy any of that hooey. I've made up my mind. Birth is still not for me.

So get comfortable in there kiddo! As your mother, I'm issuing you a first directive: stay inside.

No Cs for me please!

Even though I'm about three months away from delivering, the end seemed nearer and more frightening today than it has in the past few months when the doctor said:

"For such a small thing, you've got a good sized baby in there."

"I do?"

"Yes," he said. "It's measuring very well."

This in and of itself doesn't worry me. I'm glad the baby feels free to spread out and grow large in its fluidy environment. I want it to thrive, obviously.

But secretly, I don't want it to get TOO big. I'm pretty small, all things considered, and a gargantuan baby might not... uhm, come out. At least not by the means I've been hoping for.

All of my short, small friends who have given birth in the last few years have had c-sections. The baby's head has been too big for a natural birth, they've explained, or they didn't dilate enough or they couldn't live through yet another 27 hours of labour.

This makes me nervous because I don't want to have a c-section. I am not too posh to push. I don't want to have my ab muscles sliced for fear that they will never snap back. And I don't want to look forward to fluid-heavy, balloon-like legs that often result from the procedure or having to become dependent on pain-killers (well, maybe that's not soooo bad).

Now I have heard that it isn't all horrible. Many moms say they'd schedule a c-section again for the delivery of their second child. And they swear that the flat stomach returns - eventually, usually with work.

But I'm not convinced. Surgery's not my thing, ya know? I had my appendix out a few years ago, through tiny incisions in my abdomen, and my belly button has never looked quite the same again.

But I guess I got used to the new one. And if I have to go under the knife for this kid, hell, it'll prepare me to go under the knife again. That's right, it'll prime me for that tummy tuck I'll need to get in a few years!

I have done nothing - judge me!

At the OB/Gyn's office today, the nurse handed me a promotional bag of goodies filled with pampers, diaper rash cream and baby tushy wipes.

"Gee," I said, when the doctor walked into the room. "This kinda makes me feel like I'm really having a baby."

"That's your only clue?" he said dryly.

Ha. Ha. I still find it very hard to believe - even though I am well into the swing of things - that in a few short months someone will think of me as their mother. I've been so wrapped up in worry about having a healthy baby, I've literally overlooked the fact that I am indeed having A baby.

Aside from mentally preparing myself to be away from work and for the hardships that accompany breastfeeding and getting a newborn to sleep through the night, I've done little else to get ready for the kid's impending arrival.

No crib. No swing. No baby bathtub. I haven't bought anything yet.

I suppose I should get on top of these essential preparations, but I still feel like there is an ocean of time before the situation becomes more real.

Some people won't tamper with fate and don't shop or set up a nursery until the baby's born and on it's way home from the hospital. But, I've never been superstitious. Others, have had the entire room ready by 30 weeks - with little outfits tucked neatly into drawers. All of it just waiting. But that seems strange to me too.

I'll have to find a happy medium - maybe I'll take advantage of Boxing Day sales and buy a few cute things (does baby stuff go on sale?? It seems like it wouldn't) and leave them in an unopened bag on the floor of the baby's room.

That messy approach will surely enrage my neat freak husband.

But, getting him all worked up just might make me feel a bit less stressed about what I haven't yet done (uhm, I love you Ted!)!

I refuse to name the kid after a football player

Last night my husband and I sat in bed with the laptop at our knees, determined to choose a name for this baby, who hasn't even kicked me yet.

This seems like an impossible task. I know nothing about this tiny creature, now about the size of a knish (a fattening Jewish pastry), aside from the fact it's squishing my small intestine up into my chest as it takes over the rest of my body.

It hasn't made the slightest peep yet - aside from what I think might be a twist or a turn, now and again, but I'm not totally convinced those movements I feel roll across my stomach aren't just gas.

How can we give it a name when we don't know its personality?

Rarely, have I met an adult whose name didn't mesh with how they project on the world - so I suppose the baby will grow into whatever title we give it.... but I still feel like I have to meet this little thing before we decide.

And before we brand it for life with something silly like "acacia" or "d'brickshaw" - I refuse to name my kid after a football player....

The process continues...