Almost December!

Time has definitely flown by and I feel like a lot has happened, although it may not seem that way to the outside eye. 

As most our friends and family are aware, we are preparing to meeting our little baby boy Oliver come January 9th.  The past 7.5 months seem like a distant memory and the next 1.5 months don't seem possible. It is as if I've been in a constant state of shock and I have to tell myself - that yes, the movement you feel and see is an actual baby.

The past week I've allowed my anxiety to stew as I contemplate how unprepared I am for everything. I don't have a bag packed for the hospital, we haven't installed a car seat, we haven't interviewed pediatricians, I haven't written a birth plan, heck - I haven't even written a list of all the things I need to do to before the baby comes!

And stewing lately has lead to anxiety spirals.  My non-pregnant self would ignore, for an appropriate amount of time, any A-type personality concerns and address them within a comfortable timing.  Now, things tend to mount and explode with me whining to John about a plethora of unrelated issues that for some undefinable reason need to be resolved immediately, if not instantly.  What I'll do is, waddle over to the bed where John is relaxing and voice the following, "John, I feel icky . . . my back hurts, my feet are swollen, the birds are annoying, and we don't have a car seat installed yet". And I'll look at him . . . and wait.  He then offers a logical solution, which I instantaneously forget and then begin another similar tirade. 

Overall though, this pregnancy has gone well.  The exception would be that I now am considered a gestational diabetic, the first three months I experienced consistent nausea and vomiting, and I at one point, around five months pregnant, fell and . . . somewhat rolled downhill.  It involved empathy for a bored dog, a morning jog in cowboy boots, and a little dog's fascinatingly perfect memory of every single place he has seen our neighbor's cat.  It also involved him stopping instantly without warning, as he does any time he passes one of the cat-sighting locations, to stare for a good minute to see if there is any cat-like movement in the area. I unfortunately do not have as good of a memory as Sparky.

Having gestational diabetes has one good aspect in that I get ultrasounds fairly often to monitor the size and health of the baby.  At 32 weeks he was doing very well and weighed in the 36th percentile.  The ultrasound technician had the following three things to say: 1. "The baby wears blue pants . . . um, yeah . . . he is definitely a boy", 2. "He is very active", and 3. "your diabetes hasn't effected him yet".  She actually said quite a bit more about the baby and his health, but those three things definitely soothed quite a bit of our fears (the baby not being a boy wasn't a concern - but all the boy preparations possibly being done in vain were).

The technician also mentioned how much hair he had - and deep down inside I was happy about that.  And then instead of letting good feeling sit there deep down inside I repeated it over and over again to John and mentioned how "when I was born I had a lot of hair".  I wish I had easy access to our baby photos because you'd be able to see the difference between John and me.  John was a cute and solid gerber-type baby with a fine fuzz of light hair and with his photo showing him sitting upright without any assistance and looking poignantly at the camera.  When looking at my baby photo you notice how I had been slowly sliding into my own baby flub, making the consistency of my little baby body look like Jabba the Hut.  I was giving the camera a look that seemed to say "is this really how this body of mine is supposed to work".  However I did have one fine head of thick black hair that stood straight up a good four to five inches.

Yesterday I really enjoyed and felt the spirit of Thanksgiving as I reflected on how much John and I have to be grateful for.  I never really gave much thought to Thanksgiving growing up.  I enjoyed being around family for the holidays and yet I tended to associate the day with heavy and/or dry foods I wasn't fond of, a long and boring day with everyone taking a nap, and people feeling forced to share their very personal feelings of gratitude without any real context.  I wanted to be out and doing things with family instead.  Maybe this year my feelings of gratitude only happened to coincide with Thanksgiving as it seems that I cycle through feelings of gratitude and forgetting how much I have to be thankful for. 

I've made it a point in my mind that gratitude is meant to be felt (recognized) daily, but it isn't always easy to put it into practice.  Yet at this particular point in time, John and I are really grateful for where we are in our lives and the good people who support us.  As corny as it sounds I like the phrase our "cup runneth

However, as doors of opportunity begin to open please keep us in your prayers that they continue to do so.