I did finally sleep last night for almost seven hours straight, but woke up in a panic. (I write this while my worry free husband sleeps through a beautiful Saturday after painting the night away.) One of my recurring dreams is that I am late for a terrible Chemistry class. This class I have not yet cracked a book for and I have missed half the lectures. In my dream, I have slept through the midterm and it is past the add/drop deadline so I will be forced to fail unless I can pull it together and ace the final. I am in way over my head and cannot seem to get across campus to the lab. I awake with my gibbous body wedged between a mountain of pillows, I am freaking out and worried about how this will affect all my other classes. I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that I am not in school.

I am simply seven months pregnant and either this Chemistry class represents labor and delivery or perhaps the whole concept of parenthood. Either way, I sure don't miss that terrible end of the quarter feeling when finals are looming. I remember making plans with friends to meet at the beach or a bar after finals to celebrate, but I usually found myself biking straight back to my apartment and falling asleep. Days later I would wake up to find a mostly empty town and a stack of books ready to be sold and the money squandered on cheap beer and pinball until the next quarter.