I’m Ripe

I had my 35-week checkup this morning.  An exciting occurrence, not so much because I was getting my vagina swabbed for a routine Group Strep B test, as sexy as that is, but because it was an opportunity to drive my new car across town.  I ended up getting the Audi convertible, after all; once Mr. Candy finally sobered up, he WAS able to fit the car seat in the back  — with room to spare!

My god, Candy, everyone gasps in horror when I tell them about our new purchase.  YOU AREN’T GOING TO DRIVE TOPLESS WITH AN INFANT IN THE BACK, ARE YOU?!

No!  Of course not.  I will wear a top at all times when I drive (from now on)!

I kid, I kid.  I know I’ll only be able to enjoy the wind in my hair and gnats in my teeth for the, oh, 15 minutes a week I drive without Baby Girl.  Just let me have those 15 freeing, gnat-filled minutes, okay?

Only it’s going to take a lot more than a convertible to make me a “Cool Mommy.”  There I am, driving top-down, iPod blaring, down Sunset Boulevard this morning when the next “song” comes on, a woman intoning:  “I am a strong and wise woman, and I trust my body.”  Oh lord.  It’s the “Strong Affirmation” from my inspirational Pre-Natal Visualizations CD.   Rocking the streets of West Hollywood.

Yeah, I’m cool, all right.

I arrive at the office promptly at 11, the time of my appointment, and am not-so-promptly escorted into the examination room at noon.  Grrrrr.  Too many pregnant chicks here in L.A., I tell ya.  (Note to happily childless females in the city:  Do NOT drink the water.  Or get within a five-mile radius of Kevin Federline or Mel Gibson.)  After answering all of the doctor’s standard check-up questions, telling her about my recent Braxton-Hicks contractions and showing her my belly, which appears to be pointing more in the direction of my lap these days — dropped baby, perhaps? — and, yes, getting my vagina swabbed, the doctor decides to check the State of My Cervix.

*GULP*

I’ve heard horror stories about this process, wherein it supposedly feels like the doctor is shoving her entire arm in there — until you can see her fingers emerging from your nostrils!  True story.  I braced for the worst and gave myself a mental pep talk:   “I am a strong and wise woman, and I trust my body… I am a strong and wise woman, and I trust my body…”

“You’re ripe!” the doctor exclaimed gleefully.

Um, what?  Was she feeling my cervix — or a banana?

“Your cervix is almost totally soft.  The body is getting ready!  I’d be surprised if you made it to your due date,” she explained in response to my “huh?” face.

Good news, indeed.  My parents are flying here from Pennsylvania, arriving a week before and leaving a week after my due date, and every time I so much as mention the baby, my mom cries, “SHE’D BETTER COME WHILE I’M THERE!”  This is said in an accusatory tone, as if I have some sort of control over when Baby Girl makes her debut.   Just snap my fingers and make her appear!  If only.  I would also leverage that power to summon Ryan Reynolds whenever I want and make him whip up a dish of cheesy baked tortellini for me wearing only an apron.

What was I saying…?  Got a little distracted there…

Oh!  Yeah!  My ripeness!  So fingers crossed the Good Doctor is right.  Last thing I need is a pissed-off Mama Candy on my hands.

“That exam actually wasn’t too bad,” I told the doctor with a sigh of relief.  “I was told it could be painful.”

“I have small fingers,” she said matter-of-factly.

Ah, the things for which you become grateful when pregnant.