How to have a baby

Wednesday, Sep. 6:

People are calling left and right to see if there's a baby yet. And to offer, um, helpful advice about how to hurry things along. I guess they're impatient.

My mother and sister call.

"If I was there, I'd drive you down some bumpy country road!" my mother says.

Gee, sounds relaxing. Thanks, Mom.

My across-the-street neighbor calls.

"Just wait until the next full moon. That's when my sons were born," she says.

"I think it is a full moon," I say. (It's actually tomorrow.)

My next-door neighbor comes home while I'm checking the mailbox and helps me gather up the empty trash cans from the curb.

"Eat jalepenos or play Frisbee," she tells me.

I guess she would know -- she works in administration for some neonatalogists. I like imagining them playing Frisbee in their white lab coats.

A friend calls and thankfully doesn't give any tips on how or when to have this baby. But in the past, she has mentioned probably the most famous method of all: makin' love.

Then my doula, aka Charlie Brown, comes over so she and JP can finally meet. She says she thinks we will be holding the baby within a week.

But it may be sooner than soon anyway. I have been feeling crampy and ill since about one this morning....