About to climb the skyscraper

Now that I am completely past my half-way mark, I find that it is much scarier on this side. I kept looking forward to 20 weeks; I know many people celebrate 26 weeks because it's viability day, but 20 weeks just seemed more significant to me. The halfway point is always encouraging. You're at the top of the mountain, see the great view and know you have an easy descent with a warm bed waiting.

But I no longer feel encouraged. In fact, it is not the relief I was hoping. It is like I took a long, horrid subway ride, and I ducked my head into the sunshine for a brief moment to the smell of hot dog vendors (their wares, really, not so much them). But my ultimate destination is the 50th floor of a highrise, and now I find out the elevator's broken and I have to climb 50 flights of stairs. I am just starting to climb those stairs. I'm sure I'll find by the time I hit 36 weeks that I really need to throw in a few more obstacles on my stair climb to fully describe what I'm going through.

My body is starting to feel very old. I sanded the walls of the basement on Sunday, and managed to pull a groin muscle. From sanding. I like to believe I really throw myself into my work, but pulling a groin muscle while sanding with my arm muscle is.... fail. It really is throwing myself into my work, I suppose,but only because my work happens to be the wall. This, on top of sciatic nerve hip pain, and I completely sound like my grandmother (may she rest in peace). Does this go away after you pop out the kid? Or is this really just the first step on the road to becoming a grandmother?

The last fear I'll leave you with tonight is from my birthing class. I really, really love the class, but it does leave me slightly terrified. I watched a human come out of another human's vagina tonight. Were you aware this is how it works? I think the one day I played hooky in High School was the day they must have covered this. I've seen this in Sci-Fi movies again and again: human gives birth to creature. Why am I all of a sudden supposed to believe this is normal?