WoW, turned upside down, spells MoM!! :)

Wow! That’s all I can say. Wow!!

This week marks my 28th week of pregnancy, meaning I’m getting ready to enter the third trimester. Wow! It has really gone by very quickly for me and now we’re really getting down to the wire. Only 12 weeks left, if Molly Piper Watts doesn’t decide to make an earlier appearance. I hope she’s not late, though. I don’t want to be miserably pregnant but at least it’ll be November and not hot like it has been the last few weeks.

My body is really changing. Sometime over the last few weeks it seems like I’ve grown this huge belly! I’m up to a 15-pound weight gain and trying not to fret or worry about it! But back to the belly: Some days it’s really huge! Then other days (like today) you really can’t even tell I have a baby in there! She has REALLY been kicking a lot and it feels like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I’m in awe, truly. My boobs are bigger, of course, LOL, along with my ankles, but again, on days like today, there is absolutely no lower extremity swelling. Could it be because I’ve been resting all day today? Maybe! Todd had to work this weekend so I camped out on the couch most of the day and watched TV and snoozed. It felt sooooooooooo good!

It’s been a pretty relaxing day and evening, actually. I just climbed out of the tub, where I spent over an hour, soaking and reading this month’s Women’s Health. I should have lit some pretty candles and made a cup of hot tea but didn’t think about doing so until I was already in the water. Oh well! There’s always tomorrow night! Hahaha

Something that kept entering my mind: Will I get to take a relaxing soak here and there after the baby gets here? I know Todd will take care of her while I’m indulging in this relaxing ritual, but still…I just wonder sometimes JUST HOW dramatically our lives will change. I know, I know: It’s GONNA change, no doubt about that…

Gone will be the days when we can just steal away to Wal-Mart in the middle of the day. Babies need naps, and they need a schedule. And we’ve been in the store at midnight before and some parent will have their toddler out and the kid’s all fussy and whiny and I just shake my head and think “That poor baby needs to be in bed asleep!”

Gone will be the days of the last minute night out. What are we gonna do tonight? Oh, I don’t know, how about bowling? How about a movie? Well, not after the baby gets here. Sure, we can still do things, but it’s going to take planning ahead and securing a sitter, pumping so she’ll be able to eat while we’re away from her, packing the diaper bag, blah blah blah…

While I know that there ARE inevitable changes on the horizon, I’m very excited about these changes. After all, I’ve wanted to have a baby for what seems like SO long now! And, good grief, I’m 31. I will be the first to admit that the focus of my life has taken an entire shift because it is NOT about me anymore. It’s not even about Todd anymore. It’s about our baby who’ll be here in just 12 short weeks! Everything that I have done so far has been for her. My mind is always on the baby and my desire to make sure she is happy and healthy both before she arrives and after she gets here. The direction of my life has taken a sharp turn for what I feel is the better! And I’m excited about that.

I have to admit, it blows my mind just a bit that I’ll soon be someone’s mother. I don’t know how to be a mother, not really. I don’t have siblings. Sure, I babysat and stuff like that, but it’s not like I was around other kids 24/7 and assumed a motherly or sisterly role. Todd is in the same boat as me, too, bless his heart. I know he feels he doesn’t know how to be a father. He has no siblings either, and he didn’t grow up with a father figure just like I didn’t grow up with a mother figure. We are both TOTALLY clueless! But while we may be clueless, we are content in knowing that we have each other and WE get to make the family that WE never had!! And while we haven’t discussed this aspect of parenthood a great deal, I think it is an unspoken truth between us. We understand it because we each know where the other is coming from. And with that, we can take our pasts and what we’ve learned to do (or NOT to do, in our case) and just like every other new parent, go forward armed only with the best intentions and the unconditional love that we know we already have for Molly, our little one. I think all of this will only serve to make us a stronger, happier family. WE will not make the choice to leave our child, not ever. WE are choosing to break that cycle.