Baby Watch 2013

Yup, still here, still slacking hardcore. :-) Come on, you didn't want to read all that boring normal pregnancy crap anyway, right? It's better this way, jumping right ahead to the countdown. That's right, we are officially on Baby Watch, starting today. Today, because Daddies and Big Brother have landed on the West Coast. They'll be spending a few days in the San Francisco area (about two hours away) before heading out here to the (Central) Valley. I'm currently 39 weeks 2 days, and I'm not really expecting Baby Girl for at least a week (I'm actually hoping for next Wednesday because Tony will start his long weekend that day), but she's allowed to come whenever she's ready at this point. It's a relief to have her family close now. Most of me was sure she'd wait to come, like my kids, but who knows why we go into labor? Does the woman's body dictate it or the baby? And if it's the baby, all bets are off this time around. But, for the moment, she is still cozy and kicking, and I'm excited to see her family in a few days and let them all have turns feeling her bounce around inside before they get to hold her outside. I'm especially excited for her brother to get some snuggles in; he was telling everyone at the airport he was coming to California to see Tiffany and get his baby sister. <3

Mostly, I'm feeling good. I despise the heat, and next time around (which there almost certainly will be), no way in hell am I transferring December-Marchish. Ugh. 8-9 months pregnant plus 100° weather equals miserable. But somehow I'm surviving. :-) I'm super looking forward to labor and delivery, and rocking it with my HypnoBabies like I did with my son. I'm excited about IFs getting their daughter and Big Brother getting his sister. I've realized I view her far more as a completion of a family than an individual baby, if that makes sense. I don't really think much about how she'll look, I think about her daddies holding her and her brother snuggling her. Even after nine months together, I don't feel like I've developed any sort of bond with her that will be detrimental to returning her to her parents. I hope to remain in contact with them all, and I'd love to visit someday (okay, maybe a tiny part of that is their proximity to New York), but at no point have I wished she was mine. The only thing I actually am a little bummed won't be happening because she's not mine is that she won't be passed to me for skin-to-skin and breastfeeding immediately after birth. But that's not because I want to bond with her, but because I didn't get to do that with my own babies, for various reasons, and that's the only thing I felt like I never got to "do right."

I was going to wax poetic a little more, but I'd better publish this before I forget about it. :-D