seventeen days.

For real??!!

When did this happen?  How did I go from having months of pregnancy left to just over two weeks??  Let the freak-out commence!!

But honestly, I have no idea how to prepare for this little nugget.  I mean, sure, I have a whole list of things to set up and figure out, but then again, I may not even need them for another six weeks.

Things like:

[1] install baby's carseat
[2] set up the pack&play
[3] wash baby's clothes/blankets/etc.
[4] read up on caring for a newborn
[5] pack for the hospital
[6] clean the house
[7] pack for the move to Utah (ok, so this one I should have started months ago...)
[8] start & finish baby's quilts

And all that in seventeen days.  But in my head, I list these things out and simultaneously think:  She's not even coming home for at least four weeks - best case scenario.  And even if I do stay at the hospital 24/7, John and my parents are perfectly capable of installing a carseat and doing a load of laundry when the doctors finally give us the go-ahead to take her home.

And then I turn into a daydreamer and start to wonder what it would be like if they run all their tests and her heart turns out to be perfectly healthy, and all this was just Baby Nugget's idea of a good joke.  If that happened, I'd be ecstatic, I know, but I would be SO unprepared.  I'm really counting on having all this time in the hospital to learn from the nurses and soak in all the helpful information I possibly can.  I almost feel like it's cheating, a little bit.  To have a baby and then have a group of trained professionals practically write an owner's manual for me.  [You can ask anyone from my childhood - if there was a way to cheat at something, I would figure it out, and do it!!  Apparently I haven't quite outgrown that...]