There you go. That's me plus 36 pounds. Probably more since Thursday. I thought that they said that the weight gain slows down in the last month. I WAS on track to be within that 25-35 range for a long time, but all hope is now lost.

My metabolism has probably slowed down. I think that for most of the pregnancy, your body is working so hard at making the baby that it burns so many Calories in doing so (my metabolism was rockin' out first trimester). I guess the last month you're more in a holding pattern because the baby is fully formed and your body isn't having to do as much work to make it...so perhaps my lack of exercise has finally caught up to me. I tell ya, though, turning over in bed gives me more of a workout than 30 minutes on the elliptical...

Don't get me wrong - I'm not terribly unhappy about it...it's just the numbers that are kind of scary, you know, when you get on the scale and see that you're 184 pounds when last week you were 181 and before being pregnant you were 148 (there you go, world, there's my weight!). Oh, and 20 weeks ago I was probably 150.

Pregnancy has really made me love Smoothie King. I had the urge to get a smoothie on the way home from work the other day until I stepped outside into the coldness. Then I felt it was too cold for a smoothie. Now I really want one again, but I am kind of iced and snowed in. Mmmm...definitely on the to-do list for the next couple days.

Once the conditions allow, I am caught between wanting to do nothing but sit on the couch and going absolutely stir crazy and wanting to get out and do something. Part of me wants to be active tomorrow and MLK day, and the other part of me tells me that as hard as it may be to just sit down and take it easy, this is one of the last weekends in the next MANY years that I will get to do this. I think that the tie-breaker will come down to which choice would more likely speed up the onset of labor...hiking the Appalachian Trail it is...

Oh, and this ice storm? Perfect timing. The ground is completely wet right now, and the temperature is dropping from the 30's to the low 20's, which means that all that wetness will probably freeze over. Watch - I will defy all odds and go into labor tonight when I have absolutely no way of getting to the hospital. Chalk it up to a combination of changes in barometric pressure and pure bad luck, though I would probably lean towards bad luck. I was thinking about it this morning when Andy was at work (not knowing if he'd be able to come home or have to stay at the Omni at CNN Center), envisioning going into labor alone at the house, getting delivered by some frantic paramedics who never actually thought they'd have to deliver a baby, with absolutely no drugs, no husband...and having the paramedics around was my most optimistic scenario.

Still, though...I can't decide whether, given the choice, I would take that scenario or a birth two weeks past my due date. I can't decide which one is more dreadful.