IT LIVES!!!

When you're 36 weeks pregnant, it becomes very difficult to forget that there's a living creature growing inside you.

The babe in my belly continues to make its presence known in new and alarming ways. Tiny feet keep kicking me in the side, causing my belly to assume bizarre trapezoidal shapes. My bladder is the hapless recipient of never-ending head-butts, while elsewhere, tiny hands entertain themselves by pounding on my intestines.

Meanwhile, my belly just keeps growing larger, and larger, and larger... I'm more than half-expecting it to split open at any moment and release a grinning twin-jawed alien that soft-shoes its way out the nearest door singing, "Hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my ragtime gal..."

Every night while "sleeping," I wake up every 45 minutes or so to turn from one side to the other in a vain attempt to ease the pressure on my aching hips - and trying to move this mountainous belly from side to side is a task of Herculean proportions, believe me.

But sleeping on my stomach is impossible (imagine lying on a bowling ball that kicks!) while sleeping on my back is a big no-no -- it'll encourage the baby to lie with its spine against mine, and if I were to go into labour with the baby in that position, the LARGEST part of its head would make its way through me first, a condition known as "back labour" -- or, alternatively, as "OWW!!! YOU NO-GOOD MONSTER CHILD, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO ME???!"

My fingers balloon into salami-sized sausages several times a day. My pelvis has started to stretch, which means I now walk like a cowboy with rickets. I feel like I'm on ice skates - like I have to be REALLY careful when I walk, or else my legs are going to go shooting off in opposite directions and dump me on my ass. And I can no longer tie my own shoes, so I'm forced to wear flip-flops all the time, even on cold, rainy days. Yep, still the fashion queen I always was...

"Enjoy it while it lasts," sigh many of the mothers I know. "Pregnancy is the most wonderful time of your life. And you'll never have so much precious alone time again."

Alone time? ALONE TIME? How can you feel alone when there's a real, live human in your belly reminding you of its existence at least a dozen times an hour?

Ah, well. On the upside, my stomach has never been so taut in my life! Sure, I might not be sporting a six-pack, but I can tell you one thing: you can't pinch an inch on these abs. A square foot or two, perhaps... But definitely not an inch.

And there IS the sheer stupendous awe of knowing that the creature inside me is a person - a unique individual who's going to grow up to walk his or her own path and have his or her own independent thoughts and experiences.

(And, quite probably, one day read the words I wrote in this blog and say, "Jeez, Mom - why do you always have to be such a FREAK?)

Dr. Frankenstein's got nothin' on me, I tell ya...

(note: The above picture is from the movie, "It's Alive!" a schlock horror from the '70s about a killer baby born to a typical, run-of-the-mill suburban couple who are somewhat perturbed by the extent to which their newborn is "differently abled." For some odd reason, I haven't been able to get that movie out of my head these last few weeks. Go figure.

The photo was taken from: http://www.fangoria.com/store/assets/prodimg/Itsalive_puppet.jpg)