30 weeks

There were so many moments in the last year I was sure I would never see 30 weeks of pregnancy again, yet here I am and oh so very thankful. Sometimes when I think about the next 10 weeks it seems like they’ll take forever to go by and other days it seems like the time is flying by.
I have been working through some tough stuff mentally the last few weeks. It’s like a couple weeks ago I realized I was pregnant for the first time this whole pregnancy and I was terrified to be honest. I think I have been waiting so long for the other shoe to fall, to lose this baby too, that I had guarded myself against the possibility that this baby could live and I would actually have a live baby to hold at the end of it all. It caught me off guard. And there were moments where my mind would dream up the highly unlikely, completely unreasonable fears of “what if” with this pregnancy. I would think of all the rare complications, some that I’ve only seen once or twice in my nursing career, that *could* happen and would make me lose the baby. Almost like I was looking for the rare to happen again because it’s happened twice before with Knox and Lily. I am thankful for a midwife friend and several others who I could vent to and talk about this with. Most of all though, I am thankful for the patient. loving Father in Heaven for helping me deal with my fears and give me peace about what is to come. I’m feeling much better this week with what lies ahead.
I suppose that every mother wonders if she’ll be able to make it through labor again. Me included. Especially since, after 3 c-sections with my oldest, this will really be my second non-induced labor. So to a certain extent I do wonder what it will be like, if I will be blessed with a super fast labor and birth like I was last time (I’m so hoping this is the case). I’m doing the things I need to be to get myself ready for that marathon at the end. We ordered our birth supplies a couple of weeks ago and they sit neatly in a box in the corner of our bedroom. I’m not sure Kerry knows where everything is yet, but hopefully he will before we need them. I have “extra hands” on call if we need them, something that was a huge answer to prayer last week.
The only thing I’m struggling with is drinking red raspberry leaf tea. You’re supposed to to help condition the uterus and get it ready for the birth…and I’ve done it with my previous pregnancies, but this time I can barely stomach the stuff. It isn’t “robust” enough for me, I want the strong coffee flavor but it just doesn’t have it. So, for now I’ll choke down what I can, but it isn’t my thing this time. That and eating. Eating is still a challenge for me. Nothing really sounds good, still and when I do have an appetite the baby feels like he’s so high that I run out of room before I really get to enjoy much of what is on my plate. It is what it is I guess, and this is pretty typical for me when I’m pregnant. So I eat because I have to, not necessarily because I want to. I explained it to Kerry like this…it’s like eating every meal with a terrible cold, not being able to taste anything or enjoy what you’re eating. After a while, it’s just “eh” when it’s meal time.
The boys are getting very excited and still ask several times a day “Mommy, how many more weeks?” Zeke is getting anxious to hold the baby and thinks that the baby will want to sleep with him when the baby gets here.
We are excited about the next 10 weeks and the time when baby comes. We pray every day for his safe arrival and easy birth at home. By the way, we don’t have a name yet. We’re talking about it though. 🙂