37 Weeks Pregnant

I'm going to interrupt my updating with a current post because I am 37 weeks pregnant now and this baby boy is coming soon!

Before I jump into my thoughts on nearing the end of this pregnancy, I thought I'd share some pictures because we are officially at BIG status (and people kindly tell me so ;)).

I haven't been stellar at taking pictures of myself this pregnancy (which I'm really ok with) but I did make a point one weekend to have Aaron take a couple pictures of me so that this baby can look back and say "that was when I was in Mommy's tummy!"  So here I am at 35 weeks on a Friday night date night (getting them in while we can)...

And then here I am again at 35 weeks (the morning after that date) when we went to the hospital to pre-register.  I took a similar photo outside the hospital when I was pregnant with Eleanor (you can see that here) so it was fun to take one this time with Eleanor as a two year old, accompanying me for her baby brother's sake.  Eleanor was extra good during the whole hospital visit so Aaron bought her a banana as a treat and then we couldn't get it away from her for the picture...

^^The angle here is so deceiving. My belly is much bigger than it appears.

Enough photos though, here's where my brain has been lately...

I went to my 36 week doctor's appointment last week and found out I was already dilated to a 2, which made me very jittery and excited.  I have no gauge on any of this dilating stuff because my last doctor with Eleanor didn't check me in my final weeks.  The first time anyone told me I was dilated was the nurse at the hospital when she looked at me stunned and said "You're already a 10."

So hearing I was already a 2 at 36 weeks put my buns in gear.  I texted Aaron a long list of things we needed to get down asap because this baby was coming!  He immediately then texted our home teacher and the next day we had four amazing guys over at our house helping to finish paint our master bedroom.  Thank goodness for an amazing husband and really great friends.

Just after the doctor's appointment, I picked up Eleanor from Jessica's house (Jessica has been an angel to watch Eleanor during my doctor's appointments) and I quizzed her on if she thought I was going into labor soon.  So glad I have her around to talk about these sorts of things, especially since both of our first labor/birth experiences were pretty similar.

After chatting for a bit, I loaded Eleanor into the car and we headed to the local cafe for macarons   because my one-on-one time with this girl is limited.  I probably looked ridiculous to the people in the cafe for using my large DSLR camera to take pictures of my baby girl eating a macaron across the table, but I just really wanted to capture that moment of her looking so grown up.  She is my pal and has become this adorable, talkative, smart and silly 2 year old that I really enjoy being around.  Things are going to change a lot here soon and I just want to savor the present.

So here we are, now at 37 weeks and I am feeling a little calmer about it all.  My hospital bag is mostly packed and we are finishing our last pre-baby painting project tonight (Eleanor's room).  The baby's room is finished enough for now, the baby's clothes are washed and the house is in decent shape.  There are still a lot of things I need/want to get done (including attending my own baby shower this weekend!) so I'm really hoping the baby doesn't come for another couple of weeks, but if push came to shove then we would be ready for this cute little boy to join us.

I just can't believe that the time is actually here and that we really are going to have a baby again!  We are crazy excited, and if I'm being honest, a little terrified too.  Those first six weeks with a newborn were really hard for me the first go around.  Wonderful, yes, but full of lots of emotions, little sleep and a lot of pain.

I keep telling myself that this time though I have some new advantages up my sleeve, namely experience and perspective.  I already know what it's like to be needed all the time, I already know what it's like to have days and days at home just sitting around (and yet feeling totally busy and overworked) and I already know that one day in the future I will sleep again.  I am already a mom and have gotten into my motherhood groove, so I won't have the same major identity, life altering shift that I went through two years ago.  Of course, I will need to figure out how to be a mom of 2, which seems daunting, but that seems to be a little more about logistics than about identity (maybe I'm wrong but I'm going with it for now :)).

Anyways, I'm rambling but I wanted to capture all my thoughts at this point in the game.  I love feeling those (very strong) baby kicks and I love thinking that I have a nearly fully developed boy inside of me that I get to meet any day.  We have a couple names for him in mind but think we won't officially decide til we see his squishy face.  I never thought I'd wait to decide on a name til having the baby but here we are nonetheless :)

I have my 37 week appointment this afternoon so we shall see where we are at.  Either way though, we are meeting this kid sometime in the next 3 weeks!