37 weeks

The doctor said yesterday morning that my body is doing everything it's supposed to do to get ready for this baby's arrival - which doesn't say anything about how much longer he'll stay in my basketball belly, but at least we know he's getting ready to move out!  I am 50% effaced and 1cm and the baby is in the process of dropping down.  I could stay that way for three weeks, or one.  But now I move to weekly checkups, so we'll see by next week.  One thing the doctor did say was he wanted to put an induction date on the calendar now, just in case, because he does not want me to go into 41 weeks.  I really don't want to be induced, but some of the risks associated with induction turn out to be because of uncertainty of conception dates/gestational age (i.e., "post-term" babies aren't actually post-term yet because the conception date was miscalculated) - but we know the gestational age exactly here, so I will trust his judgment I suppose.  The induction date would be November 12.  The good news is, the doctor thinks there's about no chance I would make it that long without Michael the Baby coming on his own!

Mom and I went shopping on Sunday for a few remaining baby things and now the nursery is all set up with diapers, Desitin, socks, a changing pad, and crib sheets.  I can't believe there will be a baby in there soon, too!  It's very distracting.  I really need to get back to focusing on drafting my leases and trying to scrounge up other work...

EDIT: Here's an illustration for the post:

[caption id="attachment_268" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Me with the basketball belly, and Mike"][/caption]