37 is almost 40, isn't it?

Today marks the end of our 37th week of pregnancy.  It's also the beginning of the longest part of pregnancy.  While, in reality, we're so close to the end, this is the time when actually giving birth seems farthest away.
 Everyone you meet asks you when you are due and makes comments about the size of your belly and how you're obviously "ready".  You start to see the doctor once a week whereupon they check your cervix and give you the good news that you've started to dilate and labor could be "just around the corner".  From experience, I know this to be total bull.  How much I've dilated really means diddly squat at this point.  With Jayne I was at 3cm for 3 weeks.  I tried all of the little tips and tricks for starting labor because my doctor kept telling me that I was right on the brink.  All I needed was that little extra push.  Three weeks later, she still came via induction. Who knows when my body would have gone into labor on it's own.
 I think doctors should really be forbidden from telling a very pregnant woman that it could be  any day now.  For all they know, it could be weeks.  I'm finding that these weekly doctor appointments are little more than an annoyance and that the lovely cervix check just makes me feel like crap the rest of the day.
This being my fourth pregnancy, I've noticed that each pregnancy brings with it one new symptom that I never had with the previous pregnancies.  With Lilly, it was near-crippling sciatica.  With Jayne it was heartburn spawned from the fires of Hades.  With this pregnancy, it is pregnancy induced carpal tunnel.  I didn't even know this symptom existed.  It reared it's ugly head with a vengeance over the last couple of months.  My hands are numb and tingling most of the time and usually reach the painful, can't-grip-anything-if-my-life-depended-on-it stage during the night.  Combine that with at least hourly trips to the bathroom and sleep has become a thing of the past.
Wow.  This post has really turned into a pregnant lady vent fest, hasn't it? Oh well.  Pregnancy is no picnic and I for one and so very ready to hop off the train.