Waiting

You would think after waiting this long to have a baby, that NINE months (actually, pregnancy is closer to TEN) would be a breeze...guess again! I feel like since we got our positive pregnancy test time has been crawling!

Usually the last three months of the year fly by for me with all of the holidays, parties and family events, but time is definitely not flying for me right now. I'm dreading the January thru Match stretch that always feels like the longest time of the year under normal circumstances: the streaks of freezing cold days, dreary skies (thanks to the inversion) and no big holidays (until Easter) while I wait for buds and birds at the first signs of spring and the coming warm weather.

I feel so anxious all of the time! My husband keeps telling me to enjoy the minor discomforts of pregnancy now (ligament and pelvic pain currently) because he keeps hearing about how uncomfortable the third trimester is. The truth is I'm excited for the 3rd trimester. I can't wait to be that much closer to holding our baby. Even though he will be all up in my ribs, making it hard to breath and sitting on my bladder while kicking my other internal organs...I think it will be so amazing to feel our baby inside me. I'm even excited to feel what his hiccups feel like.

Really I can't wait just to feel the baby move--really feel him and know I'm feeling the baby and not wonder if it's just my insides gurgling. I think I feel him sometimes. I'll be laying still and feel like a flick or a pop in my abdomen...like the feeling when a joint pops deep inside your neck or back. Throughout the day sometimes I feel a gentle tapping every once in a while--like a twitch from the inside. It's never enough to make me stop what I'm doing and know for sure that I just felt the baby though. I am so excited to feel that first real kick!

With all the hormones surging through my body right now, my anxiousness just makes me feel that much more emotional. I get irritated so easily and cry about minor upsets. I haven't felt any more emotional than normal until recently, but the irritability has been there for months. I don't know how to make myself feel less anxious; I just never thought the pregnancy part of waiting for a baby would feel so long.

I know I need to just slow down and enjoy each day because I will never have this exact experience again: pregnant for the first time after such a struggle, with no other children at home and a flexible schedule that allows me to relax and sleep when my body needs it. I try to count down to appointments and focus on how far we've come--on Wednesday I'll be halfway through my pregnancy and we will go in for our 20-week scan, which means we get to see our little guy dancing around in my belly again (even if I can't feel him yet). Still I can't help but count down to my due date: just under 5 months...20.5 weeks...144 days.