let's have a baby.

I am just about done being pregnant! For real. There's less than a month left.

I'm so excited to see this little nugget and snuggle her little body and kiss her chunky cheeks!! But I'm also nervous as heck for her to come out and need to survive on her own. She's going to need a lot of help from medications and surgery and then it will be a long, hard battle to get her strong and healthy enough to come home. If I think about it for too long it's frightening. If I don't think about it at all I feel like I'm already neglecting her. This parenting thing is turning out to be pretty stinkin' difficult.

We still don't have her official full name picked out.  John won't let me have my way with her middle name.  Isn't he rude?  And, to make it even harder, he won't even give me any new ideas.  I think he secretly loves the name, but thinks it's too late to change his mind and save face.  Silly boy.

What we DO have picked out is her birthday.  I'm already scheduled at the hospital and everything.  We're pretty excited to have the day on our calendar as a "for sure" thing, instead of just the vague idea that a due-date gives you.  [And it being 9 days earlier isn't so bad for me, either!]  I guess she could still surprise us all and come even earlier... I hope she doesn't... preemie on top of everything else is just too many things to have to worry about.

My past couple monitoring appointments have been soooo nice.  I switched to my other doctor's office for everything, since we're getting so close to the end.  [Not that I don't trust my doctors to communicate well, they are married to each other, after all.]  But it just felt like a good idea to have the doctor delivering the baby to be the one who does my last couple exams and checks Baby Nugget's monitoring strips.  Anyway, this office has PRIVATE MONITORING ROOMS.  With my own personal stack of magazines and a TV, in case my cell phone can't keep me entertained for 45 minutes.  It's great.  And they can keep the volume up on the machine so I can hear the baby's heartbeat [and kicks] without any interference from other moms and babies.  Nugget still likes to give the nurses a hard time.  The other day she kept kicking the monitor so hard for about fifteen seconds that when I looked at the strip there was a completely blank gap where her heart rate should be. 

That's not disconcerting, is it?  I guess it would be if it wasn't caused by her kicking so hard, and the fact that I feel her rolling around and partying all hours of the day.

Anyway, we're coming down to the wire.  And I still haven't even started the diaper bag I want to make.  Or either of her quilts.  I better get my butt in gear!!