Riot and Frolic

I've been with child over 190 weeks (by my fifth go-around, mind you) and I've come to several conclusions:

1. Your pregnancy seems long… to everyone else.  While you are quite up to date on how far along you are, everyone else keeps asking like maybe you forgot to write it down and IT. IS. IMMINENT.  
2. Men are more well-trained than women in how to talk to a pregnant woman. Men generally avoid eye contact with the looming abdomen and, probably because of the lack of first-hand experience, DO NOT BRING UP ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR SITUATION.  I am a big fan of this avoidance technique.  Really, ladies, we don't need to share our horror stories or latest terrifying baby disease tale or ANYTHING RELATED TO MY CONDITION AT ALL.  Just like the well-trained men of the world, say, "My, you look lovely.  Would you like a cookie?"
3. Contractions are no ray of sunshine, but then there's the shaking.  Contractions get a bad rap.  Yeah, they suck, but at least they're useful.  I, and many other women to various degrees, have been more off-put by the shaking that comes before that baby comes out.  Apparently called "labor shakes" (which sounds like bonus ice cream treats for going through the whole debacle), it's a response to adrenaline, hormone shifts, and temperature fluctuations before actual birth.  They've gotten progressively worse with each kid for me and while I get closer and closer to not having an epidural (which I highly recommend – hoo! good stuff!), the uncontrollable, unstoppable, bed-shaking tremors have put me over the edge every time.  
4. People who try to guess the gender are full of shit.  And this is coming from someone who guessed wrong for my own EVERY SINGLE TIME.  Like, they handed me my first kid WHICH I SWORE WAS GOING TO BE A BOY and announced, "It's a girl!" and I'm like, "Are you suuuurrreee?" and had to check her out myself.  But seriously, it's a 50/50 chance.  And yet people are sooooo confident.  
5. The "9 months" timeline is also bullshit.  Yeah, yeah, if you look at a calendar, 9 months is approximately 40 weeks, but the medical profession looks at it like this:
   

   Month 1: weeks 1-4

   Month 2: weeks 5-8

   Month 3: weeks 9-12 

   Month 4: weeks 13-16 

   Month 5: weeks 17-20 

   Month 6: weeks 21-24 

   Month 7: weeks 25-28 

   Month 8: weeks 29-32 

   Month 9: weeks 33-36

   Month 10 [YES, TEN]: weeks 37-40

   WHUT.  

   Then how, exactly, does 40 weeks make tracking "trimesters" so appealing?  I want semesters.  And grades.   (For the record, I'd get a A+ in blood pressure and an F in getting blood drawn.)

6. That amnesia thing is real.  We really truly forget about much of the unpleasantness of pregnancy and childbirth.  People ask me about it fairly often and I unsurely muse how I don't remember.  So, if you don't have any siblings, it might be because your mom WROTE THAT SHIT DOWN.