Twenty twenty twenty-four hours to go, I wanna be sedated...

Actually, I have no time for sedation. There is laundry to be done, nursery items to be organized, bags to be packed. There's thank-you notes to write up while we still have time, as well as e-mail correspondences to catch up on because hey, I want to talk to my friends one last time before the whole world changes before my eyes.

There is the attempt to refrain from burning my copy of The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy, once one of my favorite pre-natal tomes, after reading last night that they consider pre-scheduled c-sections to be only for women who have placenta previa, triplets, or a vain desire to keep tight vaginal muscles combined with a doctor willing to screw the insurance company to pay for the procedure. As I have neither triplets nor placentia previa, I really do not appreciate the implication here. Nor do I appreciate the fact that every other woman on the planet will consider me to be that vain - already I'm getting the comments of "you're so lucky," along with my mom being relieved that "you don't have to go through all that" and congratulating me for making the right choice, as if I actually had one. I had my Lamaze instructor telling our class to keep positive thoughts around April 26 for Maranie to go into labor so she'd feel what having a baby is really like, then following that up with a ten-minute homily on how it doesn't matter how your child is born in the long run. Gee, thanks. :-P Even better was Jason's sister using his congratulatory call for the (drug-free) birth of her child on Thursday to start slamming me for using painkillers at MY delivery. ("It's not like you can have a cesearean without them" he told her tersely just before getting off the phone, thus unfortunately putting him in the middle of the latest round of Sister v. Wife, which of course is not where I like for him to be.) Isn't it nice to know that I get to celebrate the birth of my first child with the knowledge that I'll be burned at the stake by every mother on the planet for something that's beyond my control?

Then there is the attempt to get as much of the birth announcement order finished as possible before the birth, so the items will be availalbe ASAP after Veronica is born. While we've picked out the style, the font, and the font color of the announcement, we're having great difficulty with the wording, wishing to add the term " - insert fanfare here - " or some similar nonsense but not finding a good way to actually do so. (And you just know, don't you, that the phrase will result in the delay of the order as some twit from the company calls me and says "Yes, Ms. Warren, um, we don't have an option for sound effects in our cards" while I'm banging my head up against a wall, wondering just how stupid people can be.)

Then there is the attempt to find a place for Veronica's four thermometers. I don't know how this happened, but Jason's in the nursery now trying to organize it and just did a thermometer roll call. We have a temporal artery thermometer (read: forehead), an ear one, a rectal, and an oral. Kinda scary to think how many orifices we can take her tempature in now, isn't it? :-P

And finally (not really, but it's called I don't have time to mention anything else right now!) I need to get showered and be presentable by the time Susan stops by to test out the key we had made for her, so she can make a run for us if necessary. (Darren is also our gopher, but he lives farther away, plus he normally works second shift; Susan is perfect for evening runs to the house or wherever, if necessary.)

So here's the last posting of Maranie not equalling "Mommy." Wish me luck tomorrow. Wish Jason luck. Wish Veronica luck. We're all three going to need it.