As I write this, I have 13 days until my due date, and right now editor Dennis Box is freaking out. Oh, and he’s not hiding it well.

“I keep telling people it’s not her they need to be worried about,” Dennis tells people when they ask me how I’m doing, “it’s ME! They need to worry about me!”

Poor thing, he’s going to have to manage six long weeks without me, and that’s going to happen any time now.

Things are going really well now here at the end of the pregnancy. My blood sugar has been really solid the past month or so. In early October my endocrinologist had my hemoglobin A1C tested to get a sense of average blood sugar. When this was done in September, it was 6 percent, which is a great number and it had dropped significantly since the last check in June.

In a month it dropped to 5.7 percent, which is such a good number than when I told my obstetrician, he said, “Yes!” and did a Tiger Woods fist pump. You have to remember my OB is a really serious veteran of his field who has dealt with a lot of high risk patients.

Another good indicator that’s related to my blood sugar numbers has been the baby’s size. At 33 weeks, she was 5 pounds, 1 ounce. On Oct. 29 I had my final ultrasound, the fifth one, and our little girl was at the 50th percentile weighing in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces. That is fantastic.

Considering that diabetic women generally have larger babies, over nine pounds, it looks like if I make it all the way to my due date of Nov. 15 the baby will be about 8 pounds. Knowing she won’t be too big means there are less things to worry about.

My very serious OB has started to relax the past couple weeks as we get closer to the baby’s arrival and as I maintain good control over my blood sugar and my weight. He even cracked a joke at my last appointment, but I was so surprised I almost didn’t know how to handle it.

When I am put on the fetal monitor, I have to hold the monitor to my belly as it records the little one’s heart rate, because if it gets strapped down it just doesn’t seem to work. Becky and Sarah, the medical assistants, and I figured this out about three weeks ago.

So, at the last appointment when the doctor came in he said, “Hey, we should give you a job!”

Really, though, it’s just a matter of me knowing my baby pretty well at this point. Not only do we know that strapping the monitor down doesn’t work, we’ve figured out that she flips back and forth, almost like clockwork. Last week we got a good reading on her heart rate on the left side of my belly, the week before on the right, and it has followed that pattern for the past four weeks.

By the time you read this, I may have already delivered, but my husband and I have determined that our little one will arrive at the last possible minute — just before midnight on Nov. 15 — because Jason thinks she’ll take after her father. A journalist friend of mine posted to Facebook that she’ll take after her mother because “she respects deadlines.” Ha!

For sure this will be my last column of the year. I will be posting updates to Facebook as well as to my blog, Baby Babble while I’m on maternity leave.

We do have a name selected, but the results of the baby poll will be available at the end of this week so keep an eye out for both the poll winner and the baby’s name, which I can’t promise to be one and the same, but we’ll see.

Otherwise, I feel pretty good. Oh, I have a hard time getting up, getting out of my car, walking for extended periods of time, but it’s not too bad. My hips have quit hurting the past few weeks, which is nice, and my legs quit cramping up. Lately I’m experiencing puffy hands. I am slowly abandoning my jewelry. But, the painful tingling and lack of grip that comes along with this fluid retention-caused discomfort is only temporary, thank goodness.

That, however, is the worst of my complaints. I’ve started having little contractions and as of Oct. 29, I was 1 centimeter dilated, but it could take a while before I’m in active labor.

One thing I can tell you is that if this baby girl decides she wants to be fashionably late, my OB won’t let her go too long, as he has decided I will be induced if I don’t deliver by Nov. 15.

So, Friday, Nov. 13 will be my last day in the office before I go on maternity leave if she doesn’t arrive early.

Until then, all is well, and I’m counting the days. Now that it’s November, I’ve explained to my daughter that she can come any time. We’ll just have to see when she decides her time will be and if that meshes with everyone else’s time line.

And then the fun begins. But, not for me, for Dennis because he’s the one who has to survive six weeks without me. I’ll be just learning how to deal with a newborn. No big deal. Heh.