Waiting To Meet You

My dear baby girl,

It's true what they say about subsequent children: there's often plenty of time to document the road of the first born because distractions are limited, but with each additional child life gets a little more crazy and finding time/remembering to document each step of the journey gets more difficult.  I've not written much about this pregnancy with you, so I'll try to do a little bit of catch up.

You are already a handful.  So loved, so anticipated, but giving me a really hard time!  Of course, it doesn't help that I'm older, and this is my 5th time being pregnant in 4-5 years, that's been pretty rough on my body, but you seem to have decided not to make it any easier on me.  I've had to take medicine every night to combat all-day-sickness for our duration together, the boys gave up at the end of the third trimester.  You will be persistent. I've been more emotional, hormonal, frustrated, stressed, and generally grumpier, this makes me a little concerned for when you reach adolescence and join me on the hormone rollercoaster.  The boys might need to invest in a clubhouse in the backyard with your father... but that's ok, I know we will manage.

You've also been much more active than your brothers, or I've forgotten exactly what they felt like.  Not only are you a mover and a shaker, but you claim ALL THE SPACE.  Between headbutting me in the bladder while simultaneously kicking me under an upper left rib, punching my right waist, and booty tooching just next to my bellybutton, you appear to be determined to use up every bit of real estate you can manage, and are doing a great job.  As much as I complain about being incredibly uncomfortable, I LOVE to feel and watch you move.  In fact, you move so much and so often that when you aren't having a dance party, I get worried.  Allow me to tell you about this Halloween when you decided you were just too tired, or had shifted into a position where I just couldn't feel you as much, certainly not in the same way I was used to.  I got so worried and anxious your aunt Judi took me to the hospital so we could monitor you, only to immediately discover you were moving so much they had trouble getting the monitors in place.  You were just playing hard to get, and the next day you were back to your usually obviously-active self.  Not even born yet and already giving me gray hairs.

It will one day become apparent to all three of you kids that Mama is A Worrier.  Just ask your Opa Bullach, this is a genetic thing.  It also means that I get stressy, which isn't good for my blood pressure and in turn stresses out the medical professionals seeing us through this pregnancy.  Yesterday at our routine OB appointment my blood pressure was running high.  A lot of that was because I had only just realized the day before that I needed to change our scheduled delivery date.  The one I had chosen nearly two months ago and felt so comfortable, happy, and prepared with.  Then, I needed to change it AGAIN because the first change didn't allow enough time for us to get out of the hospital by the end of the month, which is when my current insurance plan ends.  Health insurance.  This whole debacle, and the reason we will be meeting you sooner than we anticipated is because health insurance is crazy and confusing.  And stressful, and now we are back to yesterday and our second visit to Labor and Delivery for monitoring in a week (remember Halloween?).  The good news is my blood pressure settled out, which means the problem was just stress and not something really bad, like preeclampsia.  The other good news is you did great and are looking just fine, which is always so reassuring.  Let's see if we can work together to get us to your new delivery date, deal?

In the meantime, I'm going to hopefully hold up my end of our little bargain by trying to take things a little easier, a big challenge when you have two awesome, rambunctious brothers to juggle.  I am semi convinced that all your activity comes from the fact that you can hear them and our family chaos and are just getting yourself ready to keep up, maybe even lead them around by the nose when you're mobile.  I know you'll fit right in and I can't wait to see the three of you together and share in the joy you'll create in our home.  I know there will also be plenty of craziness and frustration, but it will all be worth it.  You, just like your brothers, are so dearly loved already and we can't wait to hold you, smile at you, give you kisses (Toby, for the record, has an excellent head start as for weeks he has been saying your name an emphatically, repeatedly kissing my tummy.  I don't think he really understand what your addition will mean, but he seems excited about you and that's awesome).