Pregnancy: So I may have missed a few weeks...[a coconut to a honeydew to a winter melon]

Consider this my 35 week picture. :) While I looked (and felt) like a pumpkin, Julia was closer to the size of a coconut.

My "Ha-Ha, very funny, Jake" look. :)

So, I do have a 38 and a 39 week picture, I just haven't posted them. I'd answer all the questions in the questionnaire, but the truth is that the answers are all pretty much the same. I've gained a bunch of weight, I feel like a stuffed turkey, I'm tired of being told how tired I look (Can you believe someone even told me I looked like I was "going through hell"? Gee, thanks, mister. Seriously, if you want to get punched by a pregnant lady who's just trying to help you with your paper, go talk to that guy). What I want to talk about today are some of my fears.
Surprisingly--at least up until now--my biggest fear has been labor itself. Even then, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm really afraid of it; more than anything, I would say I'm nervous about it, and that's mostly because I've never done it before and have no idea what to expect. So, I'm doing what I've been trained to do: prepare for/expect the worst, hope for the best. It's what I did for pregnancy itself, and so far it's worked in my favor. I was expecting to be puking and just be miserable for 9 months. Well, I wasn't. In fact, the only time I puked throughout my whole pregnancy (I figure I can say this now since I'm practically done--of course, that's totally going to jinx everything but oh well) was when I had to not puke during my 3-hour glucose test.

Back to my original point: I'm nervous about labor. I don't know what to expect because I've never done it. So far, I've been more nervous about the labor part of this than I have been about the Mommy-aspect of this. A friend of mine pointed something out to me that is both comforting and nerve-wracking: labor will eventually end. However many hours it lasts, however much pain there is, it will all eventually end. Motherhood will not. The moment that second little line showed up on my pregnancy test, I started on a journey that will never end. I should be nervous about this--and I'm sure I will be--but the more I think about it, the more I think that labor is a condensed shot of motherhood. (Like I said,  I've never experienced labor, but I've read a ton of birth stories, so I'm basing my observation off my limited exposure to labor through the stories of others). Labor is like a super condensed shot of motherhood. What I mean is there is discomfort, embarrasment, and intense, undescribable pain, but there is also insurmountable joy that cannot be defined as anything but the love of a mother.
I don't have any experience--yet--of motherhood, but I've watched friends become moms. I've watched my own mom--I've been her child (trust me, there was pain; my teenage years ensured that). Anyway, I mostly just made this observation and thought I'd share. If any of my mommy friends want to comment on how totally wrong I am, go for it. Like I said, this is from a completely outside, third-party point of view...