Something that has occurred to us as we get closer to childbirth: there will be a new person living in our house. For years now it’s just been me and Brian, and our pets. When he goes off to do something, I’m alone. But very soon, there will be this third person. Yes, she’ll be a little baby, our baby, but very soon her personality will appear, her voice will fill the rooms. Everything will be different.

I had odd dreams this morning. In one, I am standing on the ferry deck as it slowly moves toward the Bainbridge dock. This is something I have done hundreds of times now. It felt very real. The air was white with fog. I began to wonder where my purse was. Then I couldn’t remember how I had traveled to work that day, if I had taken the bus or driven. I felt in a panic about my bag. Then I realized it was on my shoulder, it was my woven light brown hobo which I love. In the other dream I was in San Francisco, standing outside a house where a punk show was being held in the basement. Very much about being a younger me. But, as I am now, I was hugely pregnant.

Anyway.

This morning I baked an apple crisp. And now I have given myself a bunch of chores, which I will perform at a leisurely pace. I feel like labor could be a few days off. It’s strange to finally be at the end of this, thirty-nine weeks from the first day of my last period, which was, of course, also my birthday.