Time is flying. When my pregnancy app countdown first switched to single digit weeks remaining until my due date, I freaked out a bit. But now seeing those numbers get smaller each day is downright THRILLING.
I'm feeling like this is a November baby and prior to my midwife appointment this week, I hadn't even let myself think I might still be pregnant at 39... 40... 41 weeks. I am NOT mentally or physically prepared for that. In my head, once I hit 38 weeks all bets are off and that baby is coming, right?
Right?
At least now Ross and I have had a conversation about what to do that week if there's still no baby (take the kids on a 24-hour staycation, schedule a massage, splurge on dinner and a movie as a family...)
But I'm still also okay if he comes in, oh, 8 days once we reach full-term. All along, there was a tiny question as to whether my midwife would be available. Her daughter-in-law was due exactly a month before me, but if she went to 42 weeks and I went to 38 and the midwife was out of town... ???
However, the baby has been born, the travel has been scheduled, and she'll be back by the time I reach 37 weeks, which is the earliest I could deliver with her anyway. So that's one questions answered, which is nice!
Between 34-35 weeks, I reached a level of OVER IT that I don't recall from previous pregnancies. Then again, it feels like FOREVER since I've been pregnant and I'm experiencing it all again from scratch.
Highs from this past week:
Mom, Rosie, and I spent all day Saturday making freezer meals and it was SO MUCH more fun and productive than when I spent like 3 days doing it alone last time. We even got to play outside in the last of the fall weather for a bit that afternoon. And I have like TEN great meals in the freezer ready to go, plus lactation cookies and a few loaves of bread.
Counseling on Tuesday was EXACTLY what I needed and I was really reminded that I'd like these next few days and weeks to be cozy and making memories with the two kids I do have right now, because they're amazing and everything is about to change, even if it's good change. The to-do list is just about as done as it can be (even though it's not as DONE as my OCD brain wants it to be). The birth cart is ready and newborn and postpartum clothes are washed. Diapers have been purchased for the first time in over 2 years (eek) and it's all happening.
It's so hard to do physical tasks these days even on the best days. I drop everything and can hardly bend over to pick things up! I still need to clean up the bathtub for prospective water birth, maybe tie up some financial loose ends (I'm paranoid what if I die in labor and Ross doesn't even know where my retirement money is), finish our school term... Although after chatting with my Charlotte Mason group and with the counselor, I'm feeling way less stressed about doing that 100% perfectly these last few weeks. Taking last Thursday and Friday off was much-needed and more beneficial than a picture-perfect 12-week term. Do I want my kid to remember the last few pre-baby fun things, or a few extra math lessons? Easy answer!
Overall, I'm ready to be done but also so grateful for the journey. This pregnancy has gone by really quickly in a lot of ways. It's also felt so... normal? Like, my friend Whitney in KC and I talk a lot because all our kids are close in age and being pregnant together was good for my sanity and there's a lot of solidarity there. But many of my friends here have 3, 4, 5+ kids already? So being pregnant with my third is old news. Also, I'd say my friend net here has been cast wide but not as deep as I'd like thanks to the timing of our move. I don't have super close friends here yet and there's less social everything these days. Also, I'm... different now than I was 4.5 years ago and not so emotionally attached to being a pregnant person. I think maybe that will make the transition to newborn life easier? I'm trying to take the delightful parts of pregnancy, celebrate, cherish, and remember them, and leave the rest.
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