The final countdown to baby is on. I made the girls a paper chain when there was a month left and they take a link off every morning as soon as they wake up. Then they cheerfully exclaim/question “ONLY __ DAYS LEFT?!?!?!?!?!” and then I go into mild shock that it seems so close, yet so far away.

I’m at that point of pregnancy in which…

+ I can no longer sleep well. I keep waking up to pee in the middle of the night and for some reason I also wake up in the early morning with a ton of energy (so I can’t go back to sleep) but then by mid-day I am DONE.

+ Getting off the couch is a team effort.

+ I think we may have decided on names. However, every time I think that (in each of my pregnancies), I go around thinking the baby has a name for weeks and then Tim will throw a name out of left field, completely unprovoked. Like we’ll just be sitting on the couch and he’ll go “what do you think about the name ______?” and then I’ll say, “I thought we decided on the name already…?” and he’ll say “Oh. What is it?” and then I roll my eyes and ignore him, deciding I’ll just fill out the baby name paperwork myself once the kid is born.

+ I’m starting to wonder if I could possibly get labor started early to move this c-section date into March… and then I decided there is no way this baby is coming 3 weeks earlier than his/her siblings. An April baby it shall be! (But I might eat a lot of pineapple just in case… haha!)

+ Sandals feel better than ‘regular’ shoes, even though my feet don’t feel swollen, necessarily.

+ People are starting to comment about how big I am and ask “when are you due?!”

+ Food doesn’t even sound that great anymore because my stomach is small and I get heartburn when I eat most certain things.

+ Even walking around the neighborhood takes a lot of effort and starts to hurt my ‘bump muscles’ (round ligament muscles, I assume?).

+ The end seems forever away, even though a month ago it seemed really close.

+ There are not many things I truly want to do because my energy is just gone.

+ A swift kick to my ribcage can really hurt! Baby’s got muscles.

+ Every time I stand up the baby seems to rest on my bladder, causing me to feel like I have to pee constantly.

+ My maternity clothes are all too short so I’ve had to switch to a bigger size to cover this big bump o’ mine.

+ I can no longer even try to pick up Isabelle because it’s just too much weight for me to carry… and I’m not that strong!

+ I can tell (I think, at least) which little limbs are pressing outwards when the baby moves.

+ I go to the OB once per week and started receiving c-section instructions at the last appointment. It is so different (at least in my experience) going to the OB knowing that we have a c-section scheduled. There is much less to discuss! It helps that the baby and I seem healthy and that everything is going smoothly. Baby is head down (I guess that still matters for a c-section?) which they checked via ultrasound at the last appointment. I’m GBS positive (which they tested in the first trimester), so I didn’t need to get that test done in the third trimester. I’m not going to get checked for dilation at all… all easy-peasy appointments in which I get to keep my clothes on!

+ I created a hospital packing list. I don’t pack an actual bag ahead of time, but I do create a list just in case.

+ I’m trying to enjoy every second, even the uncomfortable ones!

+ I wonder how much more my belly can possibly expand for this little human inside of it.

+ I’m carrying around a full term human! An actual baby! Just hanging out in there! It’s no small miracle that our bodies are capable of such things.

I know that in a few weeks this time will seem to have flown by. I barely remember being full-term pregnant with my other two kids so it’s just a matter of hanging in there and trying to enjoy the last few weeks as a family of four and in what is almost certainly my final pregnancy. Now I’m off to write a to-do list of things I still need to get done…