Still not a doctor...

...but I am one GIANT step closer. I finished my dissertation this week and sent it off to my advisory committee. After my committee looks it over, I still have to make their revisions and send it off to graduate studies so that they can choose an external examiner for my defense, but these things all happen on a finite time scale. So, if everything goes smoothly, I should be defending my PhD before the end of September! (I have every reason to think that things will go as smoothly as possible, because my committee chair and my supervisors have really great at moving things along since I got pregnant. Go figure.)

Speaking of the pregnancy, I'm 31 weeks today. In a way, I can't believe that I am already 31 weeks pregnant. On the other hand, I feel like I have been pregnant FOREVER and I STILL have 9 weeks before my due date. Plus, since first pregnancies average around 41 weeks 1 day, and I was 3 weeks overdue when I made my grand entrance, I am not expecting this baby to show up right on time anyway. Regardless, everything is going well so far. Baby is even already in the correct position to be born (head down, facing backwards), although he/she still has enough room to flip around in there for at least a few more weeks.

We are actually getting to the point in the pregnancy where we need to start planning for the birth and getting the house ready for baby. I am in a midwifery program run by the province, so I have the option to have either a home or a hospital birth with my midwife. As of right now, we are planning to stay at home unless there is a reason to be at the hospital. I originally thought that I wanted to have only E as my birth partner, but I have been feeling a little apprehensive in the past couple of weeks about neither of us knowing what to do or expect, especially during early labor when the midwives will not be there. A doula is starting to seem like a really good idea to me, so I am currently looking for one who is a good fit for us.

We have been trying to keep the baby junk to a minimum since we will be moving when baby is about 10 weeks old. Even so, we have a whole pile of stuff, and we don't even have two of the most important things yet (a carseat and a place for baby to sleep). I guess part of the issue is that I am set on cloth diapering, so we have loads of diapers in addition to all the clothes, the bouncy seat, the bath, the towels and blankets, the nursing pillow, etc.