A lot to catch up on!

Quick notes:

• Sixteen days till the due date! Arrival predictions from friends: Christina - April 8, Mrs. O - April 15 (grrr), JD - April 13. We are still accepting predictions. :)
• We picked a pediatrician! 
• We picked a just-in-case boy's name! (Ethan Alexander - and dibs on this name for the future if we don't use it for this baby!)
• Other than a few little items (that we're getting today), we packed our hospital bag!
• We wrote our In Case of Emergency contact cards for the door and fridge!
• We wrote our "Birth Wish" (the more realistic name for a "Birth Plan")
• We finished both our Infant Care class series and Prepared Childbirth class series - both totally worth the time and money, and we had the best instructor - Therese was awesome!

 My last day of work is going to be April 1st - that's this Friday. And then we wait for, as Juno would yell, "Thundercats are GO!" As tiring as it is to work a full schedule when proper nutrition (heck, semi-proper nutrition) is an ongoing challenge, sleep is elusive, and any physical activity (including simple things like doing laundry) is increasingly uncomfortable, I was worried about kind of going stir-crazy being home on maternity leave and just sort of waiting. But I have created for myself a bit of a to-do list to keep busy, so I'm not quite as worried. Nights will still be tough.

I have become somewhat of a pro at sleeping sitting up, and my spot on the couch makes for a great nap spot. Isabella seems to have her own favorite positions for various times of day, and as she runs out of room in there, I'm more and more confident I can tell the difference between her feet and knees and elbows wiggling around in there. She still finds room for little punches and sort of really strong kicks.

Braxton-Hicks contractions have become so common for me now that I don't get excited or even try to time them to make sure they're not real labor. I even considered suggesting the name Braxton to Alex when we were trying to find our just-in-case boy name. But I do feel Isabella descending - maybe. If it's possible to simultaneously descend and not turn - she seems to still be more or less transverse rather than coming around to head-down. I didn't think this was possible but my belly button has poked out even further. I'm pretty sure if I don't give birth soon my belly will just rip open from being stretched so much.

People keep asking how I'm feeling - nervous, excited, anxious... To be honest, after our classes, I'm not nervous at all about the labor experience. I'm beyond excited to meet our baby; it's an incredible feeling to know there's a baby in there and it's coming soon and she's going to be a person with all that goes with personhood. I'm not really nervous about taking care of her after - not that I think I'll know everything or that I won't have questions or self-doubt about things or that I won't have days that I'm going, "I don't know what else to DO!" But I'm not nervous about those obstacles - everyone has them, I have Alex and we have my mom and my stepdad ready to help at a moment's notice (and really, a huge support system from afar including Alex's mom, my dad and stepmom, my grandma, my Uncle Bill, all our friends). I'm not nervous at all about how the relationship between me and Alex will change - everyone talks about how much a baby changes things. I feel so confident in our relationship, our love, our friendship that I know it will only bring us even closer together and add another rich dimension to our life together.

What I am nervous about is the physical things that happen after birth. I've spent the past however many weeks and months in discomfort at varying levels for various reasons - the swelling, the reflux, the pelvic aching and popping (which is getting even worse of course, as my body makes way), on and on - and wishing for The Big Day to just get here, that I didn't even bother to learn what happens to me, my body, right after. I was nervous about how I'd look - I didn't think about how I'd feel. Apparently it's not all fun and games either. The inversion of the uterus is supposedly totally uncomfortable. You apparently bleed like a period for up to SIX weeks - pads only, no tampons! The list is long.

Alex told me last night, "No matter what, it won't be as bad as you're feeling now." I told him, "That's the thing! What if it is?! This whole time I've been saying, this sucks I just want to have her already. What if we have her and my body is so uncooperative that I end up saying, 'THIS sucks too!!' There's NO way to know."

I suppose that's the scariest part of pregnancy, postpartum and parenting in general though, right? It's not so much the things you know are going to be tough, like labor pains or sleepless nights. It's the stuff you don't even know that you don't know. The big black hole of what ifs, what nows, and what do I dos. Man, I hope she's an easy kid...