Home Stretch

I am just a few hours from my last day of work for 12 weeks and 3 days from full term: 40 weeks. I can't believe how the time has flown! I am feeling great. I am not uncomfortable when awake almost ever. Sleeping is a bit more challenging but not nearly as painful as it was when my ribs still hurt. They magically ceased to hurt about 3 weeks ago. It was a great discovery, suddenly no pain! I think my ribs (alternating with my back for the first 2/3 of the time) ached for 16 straight weeks.
I survived, and know there are worse things. But I'm very happy to report weeks now of pain-free existence. The exchange was having to get up at night to use the bathroom. I had escaped that little annoyance for 36 or so weeks, now it is nightly. Sometimes it is twice nightly.
We've moved some of Rob's things to the basement for a pseudo office. Half our basement is finished and I use that term loosely. It is drywalled and carpeted, while the other half is cement walls on cement flooring. It was his idea to move a desk and bed down there, so we cleared out our boxes, steam cleaned the carpet, and put furniture in the room. It became a remarkably cozy little living space. Since it was hot, and since our air conditioning does not reach the second floor well, we started sleeping in the much cooler basement area. The temperature is wonderful, even keeping the AC on a relatively high temp kept the basement nice and cool. The down side is the urge to pee that hits me about 3 am every night now. Our only bathroom is on the second floor. I have to REALLY need to go before making the half asleep trek up two levels to the bathroom. What usually goes through my mind first is that I could hold it, sleep a while longer, and sometimes I do that. Then I wake 30 or so minutes later having to go even worse. Then I think of the unfinished half of the basement, just a few steps away and how there is a drain in the middle of the floor. It tempts me most nights. But I also go through the details in my head and squatting is not that easy anymore. Then there's no toilet paper, what if a cat follows me in? And really, I can just upstairs, right?

So I do. I have yet to wet the bed or succumb to the temptation of the drain. And yet I admit to pondering it.