36 weeks and whining

I love the belly.

I love the fact that I no longer have to be self conscious about my soft belly - that right now, I look how I look and I need to make no apologies for it. Sure, the cankles are kind of horrendous, and the puffy face isn't exactly my best look - but in general, I feel better from a confidence level than I have perhaps ever. (Except maybe that time in London when I walked everywhere I went and weighed about as much as your standard housecat, but those days are long gone).

But from a mental, hormonal, emotional level? Trainwreck.

I lay awake at night and worry - not about the kid, not about labour, but about ridiculous things, things that shouldn't provoke anxiety but that do when I'm hormonal. Example: Last weekend I was trying to organize a coffee with the lovely Her Bad Mother and I woke the night before ridiculously panicked that we wouldn't be able to get it organized. A coffee, for crying out loud. Of course, we did organize it and I enjoyed myself immensely - and why wouldn't I? Coffee with a friend. Why is this making me freak out?

It reminds me of when I was a teenager and even in to my early 20s and my hormones were all over the place and I couldn't control them, had no idea what was going on, and would get these spiralling thoughts stewing in my head, spinning around and around, over and over without resolution. Things that mattered, things that didn't, things I just needed to get a whole lot more zen over but somehow couldn't. I was very happy to see those days end. And I'm not happy to have them back.

Then there's the mental level. The swiss cheese brain is well documented in pregnancy. But what's also getting to me is my utter lack of blogging mojo. I was hitting a good stride both here and on ecochick, and I completely lost my stride and lost a whole lot of good blog karma, karma that's going to take a gargantuan effort to fix. And how, exactly, do I plan to spend the time fixing this with a screaming baby attached to my hip?

And the final question: Are any of you really interested in coming here to listen to me whine? Don't answer that.