36 Weeks???!!!!!

36 weeks

How your baby's growing:Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement. At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position. "Info taken from http://www.babycenter.com/."

Less than a month to go????? I got an email this evening from a dear fellow homeschooling mom who has 13 children. She was checking up on us since I have less than a month to go, stating that today is the 19th and I am due the 15th of next month so she wanted to know of any specific prayer request we may have as it gets closer. I think I stopped and never got back around to finishing the email after reading that I have less than 30 days left. I had to go back and think through it all and make sure she was right. She then gave the dates of the other moms who follow only a few days behind me with their due dates.....and I was shocked to see I am the next up in line due with a baby!!!! Are we really THAT close???? I suppose it always seems like forever and a day away and we'll eventually get there. Right now we're just busy doing our day to day routine...school work, house stuff, errand running, planning prenatal trips to FW and, of course, rounding up wild donkeys. I did manage to wash all of the baby girl clothes last week. I was heartbroken to find that about 1/2 of them have those massive yellow stains on them from being stored for so many years. I'm still trying to resolve that issue and get them out so they'll be usable again. We pretty much have everything else ready..or as ready as it gets. I need to get the swing down and wash it. We already have plenty of Goldenseal left over from Gavin for her cord needs (I LOVE that stuff!!!!) and really all we need to pick up is the lavender baby wash that Brad is entirely excited about using again. He said of all the things he remembers about Evye and Aubrey as infants is the way they always smelled after they were bathed and lotioned up in the lavender baby wash. I tried using it on Garrison and Grant but he quickly shot that one down saying they smelled like girls. So, back to the orginal baby scents we went. I think he's more excited about buying lavender again than I am.

With the realization that we have only days to go at this point I added the little baby countdown novelty to the side bar of the blog. It helps me keep track of my own pregnancy. I again found it shocking when I installed it that it stated I have only 27 days to go from today....and today's already over. For the 1st 12 weeks of this pregnancy to have drug by like they did the months since then have flown by. I can't believe we're here and I can't believe I'm facing labor yet again....in probably only a month's time. I figure if she comes on the 20th or so we're right at a month out. So, here I am contemplating how on earth and why on earth I am doing this yet again. I'm amazed by how many comments we get about how easy it must be for me to carry a baby and how easy and pain free my births must be to continue doing this over and over again. Ummm.....no. No, no and really really no. Yes, the pregnancies are not fraught with complications as some have to suffer with but my platelet count still proves to be a constant prayer issue in every pregnancy. We'll retake that at my next appt on the 31st to see where it stands. As He has proven so faithful in the past, the Lord has heard the cries of our hearts and kept it up there above the 50,000 mark.....even more so this pregnancy. We are blessed each and every time such wonderful reports come back. Aside from the little platelet issue and some anemia issues there has not been much to deal with in any of the pregnancies...except the medical profession when twins were concerned. Ugh. Don't even get me started on that one. So, yes....though I can't exactly say pregnancies are wonderfully enjoyable as I grow huge and weigh more than what seems humanly possible and the discomforts of being large and whale-like kick in and the little minor aches and pain nuisances are experienced we have been very, very blessed where health is concerned.

BUT....on the pain free, easy, popping out baby, birthing theology.......well........let's just say that people are ignorant. There is no easy way to have a baby. Hospitals suck...spoken from many of my own personal experiences, epidurals suck....there again spoken from many experiences, and despite the freedom of homebirthing...the pain of labor sucks no matter how fast it is. I have to laugh when people make it out to be that I can just call Brad home and say in a shocked manner "Oh honey, I think I need to push." Nope....no matter how many you have there is no, "Oh honey, I think I just delivered a baby" thing. Though Gavin's was fast and furious and by far, the best labor and delivery I have ever had, it still was just painful.....no matter how you look at it. It was a dream birth. It was the most personal, couple bonding thing I think Brad and I have ever done in our entire marriage. It was one of the most amazing things in life I have ever experienced. But, it's still just painful. So yes, I laugh at those who say my births must be entirely easy, pain free and I have it so much better than others. I absolutely love the freedom that comes with homebirthing. I love that I am not hooked up to IV's and itchy baby monitors. I love that a BP cuff does not go off everytime I have to take it off to go pee. I love that I am not pulling an IV stand with me to the bathroom and having to work around it everytime I have to go. I love that there are no needles stuck in my arm or hand for hours on end. I really love that I can get up and walk around and carry out my daily duties. I can do dishes, take care of children and walk around. I am not stuck on my back or my side in pain in a hard, cold hospital bed. I can get in and out of the tub freely and eat and drink when I feel like it....no more ice chips for hours on end. I love that my baby is safe and monitored without the fear tactics of mad nurses when they get so irritated that I won't submit to hospital "policies". I love that no one is standing there threatening me with a c-section due to the fact I am not progressing according to their schedule. And I am in love with the fact that my baby is not whisked away to a nursery or even taken from me at all. They didn't exactly whisk Aubrey away but they did take her and bathe her almost immediately in the sink in the room with me instead of letting me just hold her for awhile. I dearly love the fact that when I don't feel like holding my babies immediately after birth.....which in all honesty, I just don't....that Brad is standing there cradling the new one in his strong arms standing next to me making sure that all is right with the world.

But....even given all of my love of homebirthing labor just hurts no matter how it goes. It is never easy to welcome the pain. It is never easy getting this close knowing what lays inevitably on the horizon. I can't exactly say I am one of those that just entirely embraces the whole birth experience......though I am entirely excited and in love with the fact that this baby will be a water birth baby. So, here we are with it looming before us. I again wonder how it will all pan out. Where Brad will be, if it will go as fast as Gavin's did and how long it will take Brad to get there. I cannot imagine ever doing it without him. I wonder if I'll go over maybe even to the 25th, putting me 10 days overdue, but freeing him up on the 1st day of his 96 so that he will already be there. I have complete and utter peace just as I did with Gavin, that the Lord will orchestrate it all perfectly and according to His greater plan and the desires of our hearts. I know that despite all that I cannot see now that He knows it all and already has it planned out perfectly...minute by minute...which is about the way it goes when you're in labor. But, still I can't help but wonder how it will all come to pass. I had a dream last night..before ever even realizing we are this close to it, that I had her 2 wks early here at home and Brad wasn't even home for it. I had to call him at the station to tell him I had the baby. Let's hope it doesn't quite happen like that. Not only is he my biggest advocate and greatest supporter but I rely on him for so much more. I love him more than life itself, more than anything I ever imagined, and I honestly cannot ever imagine going through one of life's greatest moments without him there with me. I am amazed by his love for me and how he would drop everything in life to be by my side at the slightest need of mine. I love watching him be a daddy to our children and how devoted and in love with each of them he is. So, having a baby without him is not even an option. My dream didn't seem to take that into account though.

And as the time draws closer I can't help but wonder just who she'll be and who exactly this new person being welcomed into our family is. Thoughts I usually don't have time or really take time to ponder on, before now. Will she have red hair like Grant's or brown hair like Evye's or blond hair like Garrett's? How different will she be from Evye and Aubrey since she has so many more older siblings unlike what they had? Brad and I have both marveled over Garrett's and Gavin's outgoing and loud little selves as we watch them grow. The 2 of them are so different than the others......and we can't help but think a ton of it is due to having so many older siblings and always being around constant activity, people and always being held and cared for....or picked on...depending on the moment and the day. Gavin has twice as many children loving, holding and playing with him than any of the older 3 ever did. And his needs are met on a normal daily basis by a variety of people so that not everything comes from me at all times. So, I wonder just how different Ivye will be as she grows in the love, noise, fun and chaos of our lively household. And who exactly will she look like? Even Brad has been caught saying that he wishes she would just hurry up and get here and that he can hardly wait to meet her. I think with each and every one our excitement and anticipation just grows. It really is like a present waiting to be opened.

So, here we are only 26 days away. And we all wait and grow more and more excited. I still can't help but be in some state of disbelief that we are already to this point. And I still can't help but have some trepidation as to the impending labor that awaits. But our excitement grows and as the plans and preparation for our travel and her arrival get kicked up a notch I realize it is not THAT far away at all.