Ever since enduring an apt and generalized e-scolding about adhering STRICTLY (and then some) to OPSEC, I have had the hardest time bringing myself to blog.

It seems that most of the things I'd want to share are too personal.

I'm still pregnant.  I don't think that information jeopardizes any military missions.  My due date is November 24th (Black Friday), but I have no idea when this baby is going to come.  Last week at my appointment I was 2 cm dilated, 60% effaced, and she was at -2, almost -1, station (how's that for personal information?).  My doctor seemed excited and led me to believe that delivery was imminent.

A look back at my pregnancy journal from my youngest child showed me that I was 1 cm dilated and 60% effaced for a MONTH prior to giving birth.  Not encouraging.

This week I've had contractions of both the painful and the Braxton Hicks variety, so I went in to my appointment this morning expecting progress.  None.  At all.  In fact, my cervix is still posterior. 

This is both good and bad.  I need the baby to wait until my husband comes home on leave.  Dates for that I cannot give per OPSEC, but the dates are later than what we first thought. 

And if he can't get here quickly, I know that the baby will come early and he will miss it.  That's fate or karma or whatever it is that makes things suck for me.

Of course, if that doesn't happen, the opposite will.  She will wait to make her entrance until after his leave is over and he won't meet her until she is 8 or 9 months old.

So I want my cervix to progress...but not too much!  Just enough that he can come home, take me to the beach and the mall and have some sex and then I want to go into labor. 

When I was pregnant with Orian I got tickets to a Pearl Jam concert in Lubbock.  It was about a month after I had him, and when the time came I couldn't make myself go for fear that it would disrupt the breastfeeding groove we were in.

Guess what I have?

Tickets to Pearl Jam/U2 for December 9th.

Is that irony or just something that sucks?

I am working hard at getting things caught up so that Adrian can relax when he gets here.  I mowed our jungle of a backyard with the weed eater last week.  I was forbidden to do it, but I don't trust the maintenance guys to do it.  They have sticky fingers.  I cleaned the porch and swept up all the grass and bagged up the weeds and when I was finished the yard only *sort of* looked like crap (as opposed to *completely* looking like crap before).

My upstairs storage closet was filled from the back to the front, about 4 foot high, with boxes and junk.  I spent DAYS in that damned thing, sorting, throwing away, labeling, and re-boxing things.  It's now a walk-in closet, and most things are in clear, labeled plastic boxes.  I also found some cool stuff while I was in there. 

My bedroom is cleaned up and the basinet is ready with clean sheets.  Diaper changing supplies are on hand and organized, and I have a mini swing up there so that I can hopefully take a shower every so often.

I've organized the boys' playroom just like I did with the storage closet.  I've spent HUNDREDS of dollars on plastic containers over the past couple of months, but it really does tame the chaos.

I cleaned the garage.  Moved the air hockey table.  Broke down boxes.  Swept.  Sweated.  Like the backyard, it now only looks *sort of* like crap.

There's just always so much to do.  Adrian has insisted that I put myself on modified bedrest so as not to encourage little miss Isabella to come before he gets here.

I just can't relax enough to really do that.  I'm bored and cranky and I have so much I need to do.  I did get post decals today and took care of some unnecessarily complicated banking issues.

I got the sink fixed yesterday, and the guy is coming to look at the broken dishwasher tomorrow.  I may get a new one.  Thank you, taxpayers.  Because of you, my children will have clean cereal bowls.  (Yeah, I know it's possible to wash dishes in the sink; that's what we've been doing, but it sucks.)

I cannot sleep.  The baby keeps me up.  And I get too hot.  And uncomfortable.  And my head just buzzes with thoughts.  Benadryl won't even knock me out.  I know I won't be getting much sleep when the baby comes, so I guess this is preparing me for it.  I sure would like to be able to get rested though.

I lost two pounds this week.  Amazing considering all the candy I ate.  As far as I can tell I've gained 11 lbs. with this pregnancy.  I've got a week until my due date, so I'm thinking I can't blow it too badly.  I might surprise myself, though.  I'm hoping to be back at my pre-pregnancy weight (or less) after delivery.

And then the breastfeeding will help.  I would love to be slim when Adrian gets home from the deployment.  For some reason I do well when he's gone, but I fatten up when he's here.  He never says anything though.  Except the one time at the Motherhood store when the clerk opened up a package of panties to show me what the different sizes looked like and he gasped and said, "Whoooa!"

He claimed he was joking, but I know better.

Heidi Klum I am not. 

All this rambling and I'm still not sleepy.  Anyone who read this all the way to the end deserves a prize.  How about a pair of ginormous maternity panties?  Just pay S&H and I'll send you a pair for your very own.  The uses are endless...parachuting, sofa slipcover...you name it, you can do it with these lovely pastel cotton numbers.