29 weeks

Being pregnant has been an experience. I wasn't really sure what to expect. Ladies can tell you their personal experiences all day long, but until you have gone through it yourself you really have no idea how it feels. I've been blessed so far to have had a pretty easy go of it. Besides the swollen ankles, freshman like skin and loss of personal space in the abdomen area, things have been pretty easy.

Nick has enjoyed this journey as well. He likes to get in his tummy time daily, although some days we miss our chance or the little one isn't cooperating. I lay back on the bed and he kneels beside me and places his head on my belly so he can listen to her moving and feel her kicking him in the face. He says it sounds like stomach acid churning. He takes this opportunity to talk to her as well. On one occasion he had a little math lesson with her, but usually he just likes to remind her that she's supposed to love him more than mommy.

Recently I've noticed that she's become large enough that if she's moving a lot we can now see it from the outside as well as feel it. It's a strange sensation to feel it, but to look down and watch your stomach jumping around is also really surreal. You want to hear the strangest part of it all?

Sometimes it's easy to forget that there's actually a human in there.

I know, it seems like a stupid thing to say. Yes, I've had ultrasounds and seen images and felt her kicking me. But to actually acknowledge that there is a baby in there...a real, live person...and then it hits you that not only is she in there, but SHE'S GOING TO COME OUT.

I've been enjoying my birthing classes. It's interesting and helpful and I feel like I'm learning from them along with the six other couples. Last night was the class I was most looking forward to - the hospital tour. We got to see the nursery and a labor room, the surgical room should anyone require a cesarean birth, and the recovery rooms. It honestly wasn't anything I've never seen before. I actually stood in the surgery room when they performed my mother's cesarean for Trey, I was in and out of the labor room when my sister-in-law had my niece. But it was different this time, knowing that the very room I was standing in could be MY room in November. This is where I will deliver.

I have to give birth to this baby.

No stork is bringing her in a nifty little basket. She's either coming out naturally, which I don't look forward to, or surgically, which I don't look forward to. Those are my two options. There isn't a happy third option that is easy and clean and swift. It's starting to get a little freaky.

I am quite sure that every single first time pregnant woman goes through this awful realization and yeah, blah blah, it will be so worth it when she's here, yadda yadda. I get it. For right now though, I'm going to be a little freaked out by it. It's my right. I don't really need reassurance that I can do this because I already know that I can...I mean really, there aren't any other options so I might as well suck it up and deal with it. But to imagine it actually happening to me...that this little being inside of me is a person and she's kicking me with real human legs...and then once she's out, well, that's only the beginning!

Maybe I've just been cooped up in my house for too long. I've been sick for the past couple of days with an allergy-related, snot-inducing, mucus-filled attack. I haven't actually been to work since last Friday, although I did manage to put in 5 hours from home yesterday. I think I've had too much free time on my hands today.