This Pregnancy

This pregnancy has been, well, a surprise.  Kyle and I had decided that we were OK having two kids.  Kyle has always said, "the world is made for a family of four"---booths at restaurants, sedan cars, etc. I think it was our way of coming to peace with our loss.  Also, I bought a dental practice last summer, a very big professional, financial, and personal commitment.  Being out for maternity leave at least, bed rest at most, is not a good step to make with a new business.  Well, life throws curveballs sometimes.  Boy was this a curveball!!!  You're probably wondering how this could have been such a surprise...  Yes, we both know where babies come from---I kept saying that we were the dumbest "doctors" on the planet.  I am not shy about saying this, (since I feel that many couples suffer infertility problems in silence, feeling alone) but we had help to get pregnant with Hayes and the twins.  One can only deduce that it shouldn't/couldn't happen on its own, right?   Why/how in the world did my body decide to start acting normally all of a sudden?!?!

Shock was the best description of how we felt for a while after finding out.  But we were also really scared and nervous.  Past experience is a difficult thing to erase from memory, impossible in this case.  Would I have another difficult pregnancy?  Would I have to go on bedrest?  How would Kyle handle two kids by himself?  How would my business survive?  Most importantly, could we handle another loss if it came to that?  So, understandably, we were hesitant to tell people, even family members, and to make it public knowledge (I call it "facebook public").    We have been very guarded and only in the past few weeks, when we entered the safe(r) zone, allowed ourselves to be excited, like "wow, this is really happening---we are having a baby girl!"  It has helped that this has been the most "normal" pregnancy that I've had.  No bed rest for this lady!  I worked up until last week and am now 36 weeks and 2 days pregnant (3 days further than I got with Hayes).  I am now in crazy nesting mode, getting the nursery ready and trying to organize what I can before the chaos begins---  the happy, joyful, brings-tears-to-my-eyes chaos that comes with a new breath of life into our family.

The only "complication" of this pregnancy has been that baby girl is HUGE! With a lot of fluid surrounding her.  They estimated 3 weeks ago that she was already 8 lbs, 12 oz.  Um, hello, I am growing a sumo wrestler in my belly!  My mom was so cute on the phone when I told her, saying, " you mean 8-12 at delivery?"  No, mom, NOW.  Like at 33.5 weeks!  Because baby girl is huge, then it naturally follows that I am huge.  I have looked full term for several weeks now and get comments everywhere I go about being ready to pop.  I am all belly and am shocked every single time I catch a glimpse of my profile in the mirror.  "Holy cow!!!  How/when did that happen?!?!"  I was fibbing to all the strangers, saying that yes, I was due "next week," even though I am not technically due until July 10th.  The good news about having a big baby with lots of fluid is that they moved my scheduled c-section date up a couple weeks.  I am scheduled for the 22nd (so she will share a birthday with her cousin Lawson). So no more lying to complete strangers---the big day is now "next week."  By the way, that is in only 8 days!

Without further ado, here are some ultrasound pics of our big girl.  I will try to point out what we're looking at, but it's easy for me at this point.  One of the great things about having crazy, complicated past pregnancies is the number of ultrasounds I get to have.  I lost count after 25 in this pregnancy.

Here are two shots of baby's face, the one on the left shows her little nose and closed lips, the one on the right shows her opened mouth.  She is lying sideways.

 So, this one is a pic of the circumference of her belly.  The thick white band around the edges (look under and to the left of the word "skin" on the pic) is apparently A LOT of subcutaneous fat.  I am wondering how big she'll actually be and what I will do with a fat baby.....I've never had a big baby before!

 This one is for my dental peeps---she is lying sideways again and her cheek is the lump in the middle at the top.  If you look down from there (and to the left and above the word "teeth"), you can see little hash marks that are her tooth buds.  How cool is that?!

 Ok, here is a shot showing her cute nose and lips, and big chubby cheek (the arrow points to her nose):

 Foot, obviously:

 This one was taken a while ago, but it shows her profile (top of head to the right):

 Ultrasound porn---the white lines under the word "girl" are her girly parts:

Looking up from her chin area, seeing up her nose and her chubby cheeks again.  The five dots in a row at the top left are fingers:

Last but not least, this is a view of the circumference of her head.  The little fuzzy stuff is apparently her hair (look to the right and left of the words "hair" around the circle).  The sonographer said that for it to show up on ultrasound like this means she has a lot!

We can't wait for our newest addition to get here.  Name and nursery pics will follow once she's born.  Any guesses on weight?