Did you think it was awfully suspicious how, seemingly moments after conceiving, piles of junk mail from Babies R Us and Wal Mart and every other major retailer arrived at your door? Are the digital pregnancy tests rigged up with GPS trackers now or what? We are going to need to be outfitted with the necessary items to keep our baby clothed, clean, fed, and healthy, but while I’m pretty sure I don’t need a (seriously unattractive) matching glider, ottoman, and crib skirt, I’m not entirely sure of which items I really do need within easy reach.

Thank you VERY much to everyone who read this blog! In case you're interested in how the actual birth went for us (sans epidural), here is the play-by-play...

On Thursday, March 13th, 2008, I went to my midwife for a 1pm visit. Since I was due on March 17th, she asked if she could do an internal exam and if I wouldn't mind if she stimulated the cervix just a little bit with her finger to nudge things along. She said this was nothing like inducing, but just a little nudge. I said okay. When she checked me, she said the baby was really low, my cervix was 75 percent effaced, and I was dilated about 1 to 2 centimeters. She said the whole picture made her very optimistic that we might be having a baby that weekend. She also mentioned that the internal exam and her slight stimulation might cause some cramping.

That afternoon, I did feel cramping and had some bloody show -- and I didn't know if it was just a byproduct of the internal exam or if it meant labor was beginning. That night I started to feel a lot of cramping. By midnight I started to think that the cramping was coming kind of regularly and that maybe this was contractions. Still, I thought it could be nothing or "false" labor, so I tried to go to sleep. But I was in too much pain to sleep, so I finally woke my husband up around 5 am and told him I thought something might be happening. We started timing the cramps and found they were coming fairly regularly -- around every 10 minutes -- but sometimes they were coming every 7 minutes or every 15 minutes. We decided to wait until my midwife's office was open on Friday morning to call. When we reached her around 9 am, she said that this could be very early labor or this could go away. She said to keep monitoring the contractions.

Watch Rachel's belly grow over the course of her pregnancy in this slideshow!

I'm realizing in these last weeks of pregnancy, now more than ever, that there's a reason we have the stereotypical image of pregnant women lying around with their bare feet up. It's because that's what we should all be doing at this stage! My body is aching in ways I didn't know it could ache, and when I talk to other women who are in their ninth month, they, too, feel discomfort like they've never known before (for the most part). So what is it with our society these days that we work up until our water breaks and try to keep up with normal life until the very last minute before the baby pops out?

Does anyone ever feel prepared for the baby to arrive? No matter what I do to get things ready (classes, reading, research, organizing frenzies, trips to Buy Buy Baby, etc.), I cannot seem to relax and feel ready. The other night I couldn't sleep again so I finally gave up on the idea of shuteye at 5 a.m., and instead organized my hospital bag and cleared out the hand-me-down maternity clothes I never wore that were cluttering up the nursery closet. Did I feel any sense of relief after having checked those things off my list? Strangely, no. Despite repeated attempts like these to get things done, everything still feels so unsettled and overwhelming.

Granted, I have just under four weeks to go before my due date, so I'm supposed to have a little more time to prepare, but I'm very aware of the fact that my baby will technically be full term (37 weeks) in less than ONE week and it's not beyond the realm of possibilities that she could decide to arrive then -- or sooner!