35 Weeks

Considering how miserable I've been feeling lately, I was totally shocked when my doctor told me last week that everything is looking great. Surely it's not possible to feel this awful and have things still be rolling along smoothly. Well, apparently they are. My weight gain is good so far, I have minimal swelling (unlike my first pregnancy where I was suffering from awful edema at this point in time), my blood pressure is good, and I'm measuring right where I should be. Who'da thunk it?

I've been telling myself lately that, not only will this pregnancy end in an successful VBAC and a healthy baby, but little Andrew will also come early. Two weeks early, to be exact. That way I can tell myself as of today that I only have 3 weeks of misery left! Isn't that great? I refuse to entertain any other options at this point.

It's funny how when you're not pregnant, you (or at least I did) see pregnant women who look so happy, all aglow with the gift of carrying a tiny little life, yadda yadda yadda, and you think to yourself, "Aww, I miss that. It really was so great being pregnant, wasn't it? It couldn't have been nearly as bad as I remember it!" Then one day you find yourself in that same woman's position, only, something's different: You're not glowing, you're sweating, because it's 105 degrees outside, and you're not relishing every moment because you're too busy chasing a toddler around the house, lugging him up and down the stairs in order to change his 4th poopy diaper of the day while he does his best to free himself from your arms and escape. Everything around you is in utter chaos and you've gone from somehow feeling like you sort of had things together to apologizing to your husband for the lack of dinner when he gets home, and for the fact that the dishes have been in the sink for 3 days straight now and the living room looks like a thousand toddlers stampeded through it all day long. Oh, don't forget the fact that you've been in the same super sexy, about-to-be-outgrown, mismatched outfit for the past 2 days, half of which is normally jammies. Yep.

Recently I've determined that as long as the house is still standing, Philip has been fed, changed, and kept safe and (reasonably) clean, then I consider the day to have been a success. Phil now understands that he cannot and should not expect anything beyond this, as it is the absolute most I can find the energy to do in one day. So he comes home after his 14 hour day at work and gets right to work at home making the two of us dinner, God bless him.

And all of this before I even make it to becoming a mother of two under two!

In the spirit of surviving, here's an awful picture of me at 35 weeks. I was undecided as to whether or not to share it, but if I wait around for an opportunity where I'm looking awesome, I will have nothing to look back on! LOL

Pardon the weird face, sloppy outfit, and stretch marks, please. At this point in my pregnancy I'm not out to impress. ;-)