Baby #3: 30 Weeks

As I'm entering the home stretch of what I expect to be my last pregnancy I wanted to make sure I jotted a few things down for the sake of being able to look back on as life moves forward and it starts to fade. In the moment it is easy to say I'll never forget how awful and trying this experience is, but in actuality, once the baby is in your arms and life gets crazy you do forget all the pain, discomfort and general misery that comes with growing a human. Along with it you start to forget those magical and wonderful moments scattered among those 40 weeks. When this is all said and done, I will have spent about 775 days of my life pregnant. That is kind of amazing. 

Pregnancy this time around has been quite trying. It was with Brooke as well. I think the physical demands of two small children in combination to the stress on my body has just pushed me to my limit a few times. I don't think that I have particularly difficult pregnancies overall, it is just mostly general fatigue and exhaustion. It is hard. There is a lot of guilt.

There is still something beautiful and magical about watching your belly grow and I will miss that part of pregnancy the most. When I was pregnant with Audra I hardly ever felt her move, mostly just a jab of an arm or leg. With Brooke I felt a little more movement more regularly, but nothing major. With this baby my whole belly shakes and rolls. I can actually get it on video. I'm not sure if it is because of my body being more worn in or just a more active baby, but it is a fun, albeit painful, thing to experience. I'm glad I now have those memories to look back on, I just really hope it isn't indicative of her personality.

I am very much ready to meet this little lady. I honestly feel like she is the last puzzle piece to our little family and I'm so excited for life as a family of 5. I want to always appreciate how relatively easily growing our family has been and all the support we have been given throughout the last 5 years. This phase of my life is almost over and it is certainly bittersweet.