This says it all....

I will be back to tell our birth story - but in the meantime, you could say we are a tiny bit in love with our little girl...as is Adam.    Tonight I was getting his stuff together for school and he asked if he could bring a picture of his baby sister for sharing.   Can I just get a collective "awwww" for that one?

My heart is so full and I'm riding the after-the-baby-arrives hormone train of emotions.   Which basically means I cry.   Alot.

Until later...here are some pictures to tide you over :)

 (taking a hearing test)

Dazed...

So it's after one in the morning and I'm wide awake.   I have FAILED to update this blog on a regular basis throughout my pregnancy....and now tomorrow, this baby will be here.  Or actually, it's today.  Oh wow.
I'm scheduled for a c-section at noon.  July 12th will officially be my baby's birthday.  That is so weird to think about.   It's been on the calender for two days and it's just so strange to have it all planned ahead of time....like hey, I'm having a baby on Friday - what are you up to?   I worked my last day at job #2 on Wednesday and I worked job #1 today trying to tie up loose ends....not really expecting to be gone 10 days ahead of schedule.

We were all prepared for a VBAC, with consent forms signed and research done and questions asked....until I hit 33 weeks and measured 37 weeks.   As time went on, I got bigger and bigger and continued to measure 4 weeks ahead of schedule.  My doctor felt less and less confident that I could have a successful VBAC because of not only the size of the baby, but the fact that the baby didn't drop down into my pelvis like it's supposed to.   Eventually, we had to realize that my pelvis just isn't gonna cooperate with the giant babies I grow - and we knew we'd be facing a c-section.
This baby is all crammed up under my ribs and it HURTS when it moves around, so I am darn ready to get this baby OUT.   I've been pretty miserable and uncomfortable and feeling DONE for weeks.
No more pregnancies for this mama....this 2nd one was tough.

Today I am 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant and today I measured 43 weeks.  4 days ago I was measuring 42 weeks...so I'm kind of feeling like I have popeye chowing on some spinach growing in this belly of mine.   It's crazyness.
I am oddly calm.  I feel like this is going to be such a different experience then what all happened with Adam.  I'm hoping so anyway.
I have no inkling if this is a boy or a girl....no "feeling" or "intuition" - which kind of makes me laugh because I didn't with Adam either.
The one weird thing is that we live on a cul-de-sac, and this baby will be sharing a birthday with 2 other kids.   What are the odds that out of 10 kids, 3 have the same birthday?   and I also found out it's a wedding anniversary for another neighbor.  So every single family on our court has an event going on tomorrow...ha!

My in-laws arrived tonight so they can stay with Adam.  I'm not quite sure how he will react to all this baby business, but we'll find out very soon.  I think he will end up being a very nurturing big brother - but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow he ignored the baby completely.   He's had over 5 whole years of us all to himself....definitely going to be an adjustment for him to have to share our attention.

I was reading a bedtime story to him tonight and found myself getting all weepy realizing it's our last night as a family of 3.   It made me a little sad to think about actually as I looked into my boy's big brown eyes and kissed him goodnight....his world is about to change drastically.   Yet, I'm excited that tomorrow we will finally meet the one that will fill the 4th chair at our dining table.   The other seat in the car...and the other room in our house.


Here is me at 33 weeks:

 And again at 35 weeks:

And again at 36 weeks:

 And 37 weeks:

I'll have to take a picture before I leave the house tomorrow and at the hospital :)

I can't quite possibly explain all the thoughts and emotions I'm feeling right now.  It's a jumble of calm and anxiety and peace and list checking...all topped with a heaping helping of "holy crap this is really happening in like 10 hours".

I better try and get some sleep.

Ha.

I blinked

5 years old.   My little man somehow turned 5 on April 15th.
Parenthood is a strange thing.   They grow up so fast and time just seems to FLY by - but then it's hard to remember a time when he wasn't in our lives.   What the hell did we do with our time before we had a child? I have NO idea....even though we had a whole 6 years of marriage first.
What is it they say?  The days are long - but the years are short?   SO TRUE.
Hubs and I stood hand in hand in his doorway last night and just stared at our sleeping bedheaded boy in disbelief that we now have a 5 year old.   I of course had to cut it short because in my fragile hormonal state I was about to be a blubbering MESS.   Pregnancy makes me cry...over everything.   You know that Budweiser commercial with the horse and his trainer that they played during the Superbowl?  Yeah, forget it....I had to leave the room.  The father and son cancer survivors have to bail off the Amazing Race?   Me = teary mess.

5 is going to be a milestone for our little guy.  He is going to become a big brother in a few months...graduating preschool and then will be starting Kindergarten.  To say I have anxiety about this would be an understatement.   Adam does not seem to handle change well and those are two very big changes within a few short weeks of each other.
I digressed...see?   Anxiety!   Lets move on...

Hub's birthday was on Easter Sunday this year, so we decided to drive up to San Francisco and see his family.  Our dog was scheduled for surgery the following week and would have a 2 month recovery following (this is a whole other post!) so we kind of figured it might be our last opportunity to get up there what with the pregnancy and all.  
The day before, I took Adam to an Easter Egg hunt at church since we weren't sure if the weather would allow us to do one up north.

Turns out all the eggs were empty and they gathered all these kids around to talk about finding the tomb empty...only to discover Jesus had risen!   I get that they were trying to make a point and all - but dude, hunting for empty eggs, wee bit of a letdown for kids this age.   Luckily, once the kids turned in their eggs, they got a bag of candy in it's place and this boy was happy to have chocolate to eat.

Later that night, we dyed real Easter Eggs since we like have a mix of both plastic and hard boiled...

Nothing like dying eggs in your tightey whiteys!

The next day we drove up to SF...got a late start and questioned ourselves as to why we decided to leave on Easter morning....and then had a minor car puking incident which is never fun.  But eventually we got there and had a nice dinner with all the family.   It was rainy and overcast, so we did an indoor egghunt with all the kids and it was fun and chaotic and I didn't get ANY pictures.
On Monday we took Adam to the Aquarium at the Wharf which we'd never been to and was actually VERY cool.  Long tunnels with fish all around you.  I had to stop myself from thinking about what would happen in an earthquake down there (umm, claustraphobic much?)...but still, really neat.

 We had Rocky the Raccoon and school mascot with us, so he had an adventurous day as well.

 

 We finished off our Pier 39 trip with a swing by the fun hat store where Adam picked out this little number...and surprised us by wearing it all over.   Pretty hilarious.

 We went back to the house and had dinner with family again and Nana and his cousins made star wars cupcakes for Adam for an early birthday celebration....

Before heading home on Tuesday, we stopped by my friend Amanda's to meet her to 12 day old baby boy

He is so cute!  It was a funny realization for hubs and I to discover we forgot how to transfer a newborn from one person to the other...you gotta hold their head and they just seem so fragile and neither one of us was in the right position.  Awkward.  I'm sure it'll all come back to us, but man it feels sometimes like we are going to have to relearn everything.
Speaking of babies...I finally took a belly picture.   I am 25 weeks here:

Feeling pretty huge.  I've gained 7 pounds total and everything is going well but can I just say that it's HARDER this time?  I'm more tired and more things hurt...could be that it's because I'm 5 years older...or that I already have a kid to take care of...or that I'm on the go more what with preschool and swimming lessons and staffing for Awanas and working 2 jobs.  This kid kicks me like crazy...and hard too.   Sometimes I feel like such a wuss this time around - and other times I think about all the things that can go wrong during pregnancy and I'm super grateful that I'm not dealing with nausea or suffering major side effects that would prevent me from having a normal day.    I'll be 27 weeks tomorrow.  13 weeks to go!  I'm not at all prepared...haaaa.

So last Sunday we did a small birthday gig here at home.  We've learned that our kid doesn't handle large crowds well - even with people he knows, so we decided not to torture him with a big party.  We decorated the house, and invited all the family over and one neighbor friend.

Luckily our friends Ashlee and Jason were in town with their 3 boys.   Their oldest and Adam are only 5 months apart and they moved away and we MISS them, so we were thrilled to have a day to play with them all :)

 Adam wanted a rainbow cake, so I tried my hand at that...

 Except I dropped the green as I was pulling it out of the oven and it broken in pieces, so our cake was sadly without the green :(
(adam said "mom!  you have to be CAREFUL!"  heh)

He also wanted giant cheese pizza, so Hubs and Jason went to pick that up....

 For perspective sake...the small box is a large pizza....the big box is a giant pizza that barely fits through a doorway...haha.  Hilarious and always a big hit!

 He seemed to like the cake...

 Although in perfect stinker fashion - he did make a comment about the missing green....sigh.

 Tasted good though!   Cool Whip Frosting rules...

My parents got a giant hamster ball thing for him - so all the kids had a blast rolling around in that thing...so funny to watch!
All in all, a great birthday with both families.   My big 5 year old boy....I don't often feel like other people get to see his true personality because he's so shy around others - but he truly is a funny little guy with a sweet and kind heart.  He constantly gives me lots of hugs and kisses and "love you's".   He has such an imagination and it's fun to just sit and watch him entertain himself.   He is so excited about this baby and constantly asks "when is my baby coming out?".   Hubs and I so often mimic the heart exploding to each other because of something he does or says that just hits us right there in that spot that all parents have.   You know, that one spot...that can't believe this is your child and can't believe how much you could so completely love and adore another human being.   Man, do I love this kid!

Quick Update...

I realize I'm a bad person for posting our big news back in December and then letting crickets chirp for over a month...sorry about that.   I also realize some of you may be wondering if something bad happened and that's why I haven't posted.    Well, good news - I'm still pregnant.   16 weeks and counting!
That first trimester was a bitch.   I feel like I just caught every illness possible.   Course when your immune system is slammed and you live with a preschooler it's kind of like having a walking, talking petri dish in your house, so I shouldn't have been surprised.  Throw the typical 1st trimester exhaustion in and I was a disaster.  I didn't feel human.   I don't even think I cooked dinner for 2 months.   I might have heated up a tray or two of chicken dinosaurs and thrown a few bowls of cereal in my husbands direction and just went to bed...ha!
They survived :)
Enter week 13 and I felt like a new woman...started walking the dog daily and doing yardwork.  I even pruned the crap out of a giant tree on the huge hill behind our house...ended up taking an ax to that bad boy.   I felt human again!  (and sore the next day)  I've been cooking dinner (okay not EVERY day, but we often just graze on leftovers and fend for ourselves every other day or two) and having people over.  Socializing...woohooo!  Our house has been looking pretty decent.  I must say - there is a reason they call it the "golden trimester".   I feel pretty darn great.  The only part of me that notices I'm even pregnant is this belly that doesn't fit in any of my clothes anymore.   Hello maternity pants that are too-big-but-I-have-no-choice-but-to-wear-them-anyway.   I feel like an old woman with my pants pulled up to just under my boobs.   I may or may not have even tucked one pair of pants under my bra to help them stay up....HEH
(speaking of which, what is up with our lack of good maternity clothes options here?   I swear I went everywhere and the few stores that do carry maternity have like ONE rack and sorry but I'm not paying $40 for a pair of pants I can only wear for 5 months.   We have a motherhood maternity but it's freaking expensive....Old Navy is my friend!   But ours doesn't have a maternity section, so I order online and hope for the best.)
I've also got the minor back pain at the end of the day - but my doctor says it's because I'm so short.  5'2, and the baby stuff has nowhere to go but OUT.   Also hence the reason I feel like I look about 6 months pregnant instead of 4, ha!  (I guess I really should take a belly pic - note to self!)  Boy this second time around has been interesting in that regard.  I'm even starting to feel this mcnugget move already, which I didn't feel until around 20 weeks with adam.  It's like the first time my body was like "hmmm, what's going on here?"  and took a while to come around - but the second time it went "oh yeah, we got this!" and decided to kick into gear alot faster.

To ease the back pain I busted out my yoga ball and did some stretches that the midwife at my ob's office told me about.  When I pulled it out, Adam was like "what's that for?"  so I explained to him how I used to sit on it when I was pregnant with him, and then once he was born, we discovered it was a sure thing for getting him to sleep.  I guess the bouncing from inside the belly was pretty close to the bouncing outside of the belly.  I'm not lying when I tell you we even traveled with that thing!
So Adam listened to me talk about how I used to sit on it and hold him when he was tiny and he looked at me and was kinda quiet for a few moments and then he softly said "can we do it again?"  and he crawled up in my lap and wrapped his legs around my waist and put his head on my chest and we sat there and bounced on the yoga ball like old times.   Oh man you guys, he sat there with me for like 5 whole minutes, just quiet and softly bouncing with me.  I had so many silent tears just running down my face.   What a realization that I used to hold my tiny baby boy like that and then I blinked and now he is almost 5 and going to be a big brother.  SIGH.  too fast...it's overwhelmingly too fast.

These damn hormones.