Hello? Anyone? (sound of voice echoing in an empty, high-ceilinged hallway)

A-hem. Um, hi there. As you well know, I had a baby! So, yeah, that explains why I haven't posted since...before she was born. Well, let's just jump right back into it, shall we?
So, Baby M. She's petite and blonde, with dark-blue eyes and enormous rosy cheeks. She's the love of my life, and I feel like we're getting to know and appreciate each other more every day. Just this past Sunday, for instance, S, Baby M, and I accepted an invite to join S's friend D at church. (Yes, church! Entering the sanctuary was like setting foot on the moon, I swear. It had been a long, long, long, LONG time since I'd been to church. It felt so foreign.) Anyway, we tried dropping Baby M off in the nursery with the other little cuties, but we were retrieved from the service a few minutes later by one of the caregivers, who told us Baby M "just won't stop crying." When S and I followed the caregiver back to the nursery and I scooped teary Baby M into my arms, she stopped crying within moments, and it made me feel really good. (One of the caregivers even remarked, "Isn't that amazing?") It was the first time I could think of that I was able to stop Baby M's crying so quickly and easily. In the early months, Baby M cried inconsolably, and it took all of my effort and creativity to put an end to it; often, she'd just cry herself out, and nothing I'd do would squelch the meltdowns any more quickly. It made me feel so incapable and hopeless. Now, I see from time to time that Baby M trusts me and responds to me and feels obviously comforted by me. It's a relief.
Tomorrow I start back at my old company working part time. I'll have Mondays and Fridays home with Baby M---hooray! I've never felt so confident and right about a decision I've made as I do about this decision to stop working full time. Granted, S and I will be eating lots of 49-cent Ramen noodles and cutting back on such luxuries as, you know, buying shoes and whatnot to be able to afford our apartment, but it's worth it.

I'm back! And I'm still pregnant.

Honestly, nine months is just an absurd amount of time to wait for a baby to be made. One might surmise that over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, evolution could render the nine-month gestational period more streamlined and more efficient, and, as a result, whittle it down to something like twelve weeks. Right?
I mean, NINE MONTHS. That's three-quarters of a year! It was early summer when I first learned that I had been successfully knocked up. Now it's late winter, for Christ's sake. And we're into 2006. And I'm STILL pregnant. It's been an ETERNITY.
Of course, I'm grateful the baby has not come prematurely. And I'm certainly hoping she doesn't sneak out before March 15th, my estimated due date. It's just that I'm getting pretty tired of being preggers. I'm at the point where I entertain lurid, slow-motion fantasies of drinking icy margaritas and fully caffeinated coffee. And working out! Strange as it sounds coming from a lazy ass like myself, I miss exercise. I mean, I can take walks and do some limited stretching at this point, but that's about it. I'm far too huge and ungainly to do anything like yoga or Pilates, never mind a short jog now and then.
But enough with the complaining. I'm thrilled that in six-ish weeks, Maya will make her debut and fill S and me with the kind of intense love that will change us forever, for the better. I know the joy we will feel is unimaginable at this point, but just knowing it's coming is exilharating! And we just can't wait to share so much with her: smooches, hugs, music, stories, laughter.
We're not so naive that we're unaware of all the hard work, sleep deprivation, frustration, and feelings of self-doubt that will present themselves along with our new baby, but they do seem a small price to pay for the privelege of raising a child.
All right then, that's it for now...