That grass? Over there?

Um. It looks pretty much like the grass over here.

Truthfully I've never understood the prevalence of the old adage "the grass is always greener on the other side." It might be an overdeveloped sense of empathy, but for as long as I can remember I've been pretty sure that other peoples' proverbial grass is as full of weeds as mine. Moss. Dandelions. The occasional prickly invasive thistle.

(I think moss is pretty. Dandelions leaves are full of Vitamin C and their flowers look cute in a tiny vase when plucked by a preschooler. And even thistles attract birds and butterflies.)

By the same token I've never been overdue with a baby before. I do think the baby is better by far than the pregnancy, even if you are one of those blessed mothers whose pregnancies are blooming and full of health and energy (so not me). And so I'd like very much to see the baby. Thanks for reading. For sticking in there with me while I stuck my head in the blog sand for a week or so.

And without further ado:

If the littlest Suite doesn't make his or her appearance this weekend I am going to let the doctor induce us. Did you know that it's considered by the Obstetrics and Gynecology Board or some such authority to be dangerous to be overdue as a mom of "advanced maternal age"? More to the point, it is making me more than a little crazy. I have started to obsess (started?) about unintentional home birth since we live more than an hour from the hospital. (I have some anemia issues that will not allow us to have an intentional home birth.)

I have figured my dates down to the millisecond. This is gross oversharing, I know, in light of my grandmother's generational belief that pregnancy and all discussion of such subject should be focused much closer to the result than the conception. I have also spent time agonizing over the proximity of several local EMTs and nurses, mostly men, who have reassured our family that they are "all trained up" in this delivery business. Yikes. I have to be perfectly truthful that I've felt sorry for myself that my midwife friend and former neighbor Jayme took this very inconvenient year to spend an extended vacation with her family in Hawaii. (How could she?)

I have been embarrassed in the local general store by a line of loggers, one would have to assume hardened woodsmen, astounded at my girth enough to move out of line with their post-four-p.m. six-packs. I have overheard at the girls' spring concert that I might "drop the baby in the bleachers." I have been on the church's prayer chain and oh-so-mortifyingly discovered this tidbit of news yesterday while on a walk past the Rebecca Lodge's Thursday senior citizen luncheon. I have listened to Jayme's phone advice about herbs and supplements and patience and such nonsense. I have heard from my redder-necked friends about trampolines and pickup truck rides. I have walked until the walking is a meditation but certainly not a labor induction.

I have also conveniently remembered from my first post-bacc job as a reporter at a small daily where I rotated through the vitals page duties with the other newbies: More than four times as many babies are born on the full moon as on any other day of the month. Saturday's the full moon, friends.

Keep me in your thoughts. I promise to return to the blessedly patchy grass of random rural ramblings and the all-too-often mommy blogness as soon as I'm a mom of five and not the only farm girl in Western Oregon to ever be 11 months pregnant.