Confession Time

Apparently I totally jinxed myself w/my last blog post.

The first trimester of this pregnancy was totally different than my others and the 3rd trimester has proven to be different as well. The 2nd trimester was lovely, as I expressed in my last post. And I really do still love being pregnant. As I type this, this child is communicating with me by kicking my ribs and pushing his/her head into my bladder. This child likes to stretch out. And s/he gets hiccups every night.....just like Roo did. I love it!

BUT.....this 3rd trimester has been harder than my past pregnancies, as evidenced by my lack of blog posts and general communication with the outside world. I have been TIRED. There have been days when I've had energy reminiscent of past pregnancies, but they are fewer and farther between. And after I have one of those days, I tend to crash the next day. I've still weeded the yard a few times, but each time I've questioned whether or not I would survive with a baby on my back. I have NOT worn June while weeding this summer, lol. The kids have been great and very helpful. It's been extra stressful the last month or so trying to get into a good routine with school and chores, hoping that it will carry over well when the baby comes. I'm planning on taking a couple of weeks off of school, but I don't want to take too much time off because it makes it that much harder to get going again. We still did school all through the summer (at a much more leisurely pace than normal) in preparation for taking some time off. I guess we'll just see how things go and see how I feel.

I really want to have a good, solid babymoon this time around. I tend to recover quickly and want to "get back to normal" or at least "figure out the new normal" soon after the baby comes. This time I want to take it slower.....enjoy the short time we have with a newborn in the house (our babies grow WAY too fast). I want to give myself a while longer to recover. I want to lie around the house just bonding with and nursing my baby.

(Baby just got hiccups! (It's 11:30pm here) See? Every night! I love this child so much already!)

Another confession....I'm slightly nervous about the labor this time. I don't want it to last as long as last time (which wasn't even that long compared to a lot of women, I know.....but it was long for me). I'm hoping it won't last as long, because I learned a lot of things from June's birth.....things I want to do the same, and things that I definitely need to do differently. I didn't use Brent as much as I should have during June's pregnancy, to practice hypnosis. I relied too much on the Hypnobabies scripts. While I love them, and they're awesome, my body responds so much better to Brent's voice. It's amazing the level of relaxation I can achieve with his voice in comparison to listening to my scripts. So I've been practicing with him more again this pregnancy, like we did w/Lady's. I've enjoyed it thoroughly!

I've been taking more herbs this time, as well, to help my body be more prepared for labor. I'm also having less people here this time. While I appreciated my support people last time, I don't think it was good for me to have that many people here. It's kind of like the theory of "A watched pot never boils." Even though nobody did anything to make me feel like they were waiting around for me (everyone was very sweet), *I* felt like I was taking up everybody's day, wasting their time waiting for the baby to come out and that stressed me out and slowed down my labor. Some women NEED a lot of people there supporting them, other women NEED for there to not be anybody "extra." I think I'm one of the latter. It's interesting how one can have 5 children and still learn something new at each birth. I'm sure I'll learn new things about myself at this next birth!

Another thing I'm doing this time around is seeing a chiropractor. I LOVE her! When I first went in to her, my hips were fairly "off." If you're looking down through a pelvis, it's supposed to look round, you know? My right hip jutted out in front of my left, leaving the opening for the baby smaller than it should be. So we've been working on that and my hips are totally aligned now! I'm so happy! And while I've still had lower back pain (I think it's just the way this baby is sitting in my pelvis), the adjustments have helped tremendously with that. I've also wondered if this is one of the reasons June was a bit harder to push out than some of my other babies. It's possible that she had a more narrow canal to get through.

I'm kind of hoping to have another night-time labor. Most of my labors have been evening/middle-of-the-night. June was my first daytime labor/birth, and honestly, I think I like laboring at night better. It's much more calm and relaxed. I won't have to worry about the kids. And then the kids (all except AJ since she wants to watch the birth again) will just get to meet the baby when they wake up in the morning! I'm getting SO excited to meet this child. It's such an amazing, wonderful, heavenly, magical time! I don't know that there's anything I love more than cuddling a squishy newborn, fresh from Heaven.

One more confession that's a somewhat silly one. I'm really hoping this baby stays inside until next week or later. I don't want to have a 9/11 baby. Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the attacks and I don't want it to always be associated with this child's birthday. Is that totally selfish? There's no reason for me to think this baby is coming that soon, but you never know. So send some "stay in, Baby" vibes my way, please.

Here's a pic Brent took of me at 36 weeks. We'd just got home from church. Don't I look tired? LOL.