Come. Out. Now.

Okay, party’s over. Come out now. Come out come out come out come out come out. I know that you don’t have to officially be out for another four days, but I think we both know that the time has come for you to leave. And I think we also both know that you have no intention of leaving on your eviction date whatsoever. I went to the doctor this morning and he basically said that I am the least progressed a woman can possibly be at 39.5 weeks pregnant. My theory is that you are going to begin consuming me from the inside out until you are in complete possession of my body. I will slowly cease to exist, and fade darkly into the deep recesses of my conscious, while you gradually take over my entire being and devour my soul for nourishment. Since you are still my son I won’t go as far as to call you an actual demon per se, but I probably would classify you as a parasitic sea monster.

Your dad thinks that your reluctance to come out has more to do with generalized anxiety about the process of birth, as opposed to my sea monster theory. Like maybe you’re claustrophobic or something and have a fear of being squeezed for up to 15 hours just to be born and then immediately circumcised after that. Admittedly, I can’t imagine your birthday will be much fun, but trust me when I tell you that you’ll be happy once you just decide to take the plunge. Plus, it’s not like you’ll remember any of it. It will actually be me who is left with all the emotional and physical scarring.

As a way to incentivize you to hurry this along, I will list some of the things that you can look forward to once you are finally born.

Grandparents: you, Son, are going to be bombarded with grandparents once you finally get here. You’ll get this figured out in your own good time, but I’ll go ahead and fill you in on the well-known secret anyway: Grandparents are like, the best part of being alive. While your parents will work hard to teach you good habits and not to spoil you and to restrict your sugar intake, your grandparents will be there to undo all of that progress and give you everything you want. If you will just be born already, I have it on good authority that you have four grandparents who are scheduled to come to Boston and start the spoiling process immediately upon their arrival. I’m sure you’re nice and cozy in that little womb hot tub of yours, but I can guarantee you that it won’t compare to the arms of me, Dad, and all of these grandparents who will refuse to put you down for the first two weeks of your life.

Presents: you have already been given so many toys and clothes and gadgets that are just waiting for you to come and make good use of them. For instance, you have a Sophie the Giraffe, which is your first official status symbol and already makes you a really popular baby. You have books, rattles, teething toys, and even an outfit from Paris that is all yours to have a blow-out in. You have a pristine nursery with freshly washed bedding and drawers full of neatly folded clothes. You even have a turtle diaper stacker. Did you read that right? A turtle diaper stacker!! Let’s face it, while I’m sure it’s a cushy life inside my uterus, I know for a fact that you aren’t getting any presents in there. Don’t you want all your presents? Good, then be born already.

Outside: right now it’s June 20th. The weather is amazing. I figure at this point we have a solid 14 weeks left of sunny, warm days full of long walks, hanging out in the park, and turkey sandwiches (the sandwiches are for me). But each day you procrastinate the inevitable, is another perfect summer day gone to waste, and another turkey sandwich I can’t eat because whoever banned cold cuts for pregnant women is pure evil. Trust me when I tell you that there is nothing better than this city in this summertime. Since I’ll be on maternity leave, you and I will spend all summer living it up. I’ll show you flowers, birds, grass, clouds, the sun…and the list goes on and on. Right now I assume things are pretty much just black and gurgly in there. But the sooner you come out the sooner we can go play, and eat some sandwiches. Plus we will take you to Frog Pond and let you dip your little toes in the pool. You’ll love that.

Are you convinced yet? Have you decided that 24 hours of stress is worth a lifetime of grandparents, presents and being outside? No? You aren’t convinced? Okay well how’s this: if you don’t come out soon I will literally smoke you out with a match.