I didn’t feel well all weekend, once again I knew I had done too much. There was so much to do though and time was running out. Monday night I went to bed early and was awakened several times with contractions too strong to just ignore. I also was checking my phone repeatedly for updates on my best friends labor – she was at the hospital and awaiting the arrival of her third child, a baby girl.

By about 2 AM everything had calmed down and I was back to sleep. Hours later I was at work and trying desperately to concentrate, I noticed a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions and again, that I was generally  not feeling well. By 10 Am I had called my OB’s office and made an appointment for later that afternoon. By 12 noon, I had called and asked to come in ASAP. Sometime around 1Pm, my doctor checked me and said that I was surprisingly at a “2″ and about 50% effaced and that that baby’s head was really low. She decided to send me to the hospital for monitoring to see how often the contractions were coming.

All of this would have been really exciting, except…I was only 34 weeks.

After an hour on the monitor at the hospital and contractions 3 minutes apart, my doctor admitted me for preterm labor. I was really scared and stressed out. I didn’t want to give birth at 34 weeks. I knew it wouldn’t be catastrophic but it wasn’t ideal for the baby. He needed to “cook” for at least 3 more weeks.

Once admitted, I made a lot of phone calls and let everyone know what was going on. Once admitted I was given a pill that is supposed to stop labor and a healthy dose of IV fluids. By 10 pm that night, contractions were still regular and they decided a I needed an IV medicine called magnesium sulfate. For those of you not familiar….mag sulfate is pretty much the Devil’s cocktail. It makes you feel hot, tired and like your limbs weigh 100 lbs each. You can’t get comfortable and you are in total misery.

 By midnight that night, a nurse was comforting me as I cried and proceeded to let my emotions get the best of me. I realized how emotionally unprepared I was to have Elijah at all, let alone 6 weeks early. We had so much going on, we had just put an offer on a house and life was just too full to really think about adding another person to the mix. But here I was, faced with the prospect of an early baby with possible complications and a guaranteed stay in the NICU.

By morning the contractions had slowed and I had not made any more progression toward delivery. They decided to let me go home that evening but I was to be on bed rest for the next 4 days until my next appointment. I was thankful to be going home.

Once home, I realized I had some emotional preparation to do for baby Elijah and I needed to start taking better care of myself. Over the next three weeks I would have multiple sleepless nights from contractions and I was generally very uncomfortable but baby Eli stayed in place which was the goal.

I stopped working at 37 weeks and it wasn’t a minute too soon. I spent the next week preparing for baby, taking naps and spending time with Isaac and Joshua. By week 38 I was getting anxious to not be pregnant anymore – all of the false labor was extremely exhausting and I was starting to swell really bad.

The week I went into labor, I had a doctor appoint on Monday and she “stripped my membranes”. Seriously let’s just not talk about that. “Ouch” and “ick”, should be enough explanation. I was convinced I would go into labor later that day, all of the signs were there. Tuesday morning I woke up, still pregnant and cried. I had lost all patience with pregnancy and became a quintessential pregnant lady – hormonal and weepy. By Wednesday morning I was a flat out crazy person. I had no patience with anyone. Period. Joshua was not helping the matter by being such a pill that I actually had him stay home from pre school for a little mommy time because the day before I got a note from his teacher saying he was biting his friends and being generally ill behaved.

Around 11 am I decided to take him to the park. On the way there, this lady with  a stroller was talking on phone in the middle of the street. No joke, the middle. I waited patiently. Then I started to get mad, who stands in the middle of the street, on the phone with a stroller? I decided that honking might scare the baby and she was oblivious to my presence so I figured that turning around was the best option because I could get to the park another way. As I threw it into reverse to begin what was going to be a three point turn, I forgot I was on a hill. What happens next is just plain unfortunate.

The big giant mom car that I drive decided that going on reverse on a hill required my tires to peel out. I swear I wasn’t going fast. The look on cell phone lady’s face when I peeled out just mere feet from her and her baby was priceless. She looks up, and gives me this look of sheer panic that I am going to go all Dukes of Hazard and try to jump her and the stroller with my  1 ton hot rod. She then cusses me out. At this point my patience is totally depleted and it seemed like flipping her off was my best response.

So, after giving her the bird and finishing my 3 point turn, I head to the park. I park, get Joshie out and head to the swing set. Guess who was also on her way to the park (and STILL ON HER CELL PHONE?) I decide that it is too late to go to another park and that I just have to face her.

Five steps later, I feel as though I’ve wet my pants. Then I laugh because my first thought was “cell phone lady better not think I’m so scared of her that I peed my pants, cause I will totally fight her.” I had read someplace that a sign of impending labor is irritability…..

Joshua is oblivious to my wet pants and as I chase after him, I continue to loose more fluid (and dignity). I finally catch up with him, bribe him with Halloween candy, and head for the car. I called Kevin and everyone else that needed to know and went home to get ready for the trip to the hospital. The doctor said for me to come in right away, that with my incident of preterm labor, it was likely I would go very quickly through labor since my body was already prepared.

That would be the first of many assumptions that proved to be incorrect in the next few hours. Here is a picture I took 5 minutes before we left for the hospital….

There is now a little newborn crying so I have to go. More later on what happened at the hospital, including the Jamaican nurse and how I managed to kick my doctor out of the room in the middle of labor.

I read in my baby book that Week 33 involves some sort of growth spurt for my little pumpkin. If you look back on Week 31, you’ll see I went from pregnant! to PREGNANT! I will say that while I am getting lots of comments about looking “really ready” this week has brought some good things. I am finally starting to feel like my heart is ready for baby Elijah. I have had tons of dreams about him and I can’t wait to see what he looks like. Also, given my history of big babies and my current size, if Eli isn’t at least an 8 or 9 pounder…I got a lot of explaining to do (involving entire containers of ice cream).

The nesting has begun and I have been organizing and cooking. To be sure, I have yet to purchase a single baby item or put any of the borrowed/donated baby items I have received into any sort of organized form – but the rest of the house is getting ready for baby. I will get started on that part after my shower next week.

Note to you ladies who swear you are “done” having babies. Unless you have done something surgical to ensure that…don’t give away all of your baby stuff. The minute you do, two pink lines are going to show up on a home pregnancy test…guaranteed.

This picture is over a week old, as I am 32 plus weeks now – I am even bigger this week and will post an update tomorrow. For the time being, please note that my belly is quickly dropping….dear goodness I have a feeling I will have it resting on my thighs in no time. Pregnancy is b-ea-utiful and oh so sexy!

 When our first son was born, I was worried how the two rowdy beagles we had at the time would adjust. I actually spent real emotional energy thinking about this in the months before I delivered. I did research on introducing the baby to the dogs and I spent more minutes than I would like to admit thinking about how I could possibly have room in my heart for both the baby and the dogs. The dogs went on vacation with us, they slept with us, we had framed pictures of them around the house and on our computer screensavers. When other people told stories about what cute things their kids did, I threw in anecdotes about my beagles. Yes, I was that person. Needless to say, about 10 seconds in to holding Isaac for the first time, those dogs moved to a different corner of my heart. I still loved them but it wasn’t the same.

The night before our second son was born, I went in to his sweetly prepared nursery and cried my eyes out. I couldn’t imagine how I could love a baby as much as or more than I loved our firstborn. I couldn’t fathom how my heart would have room for this next child. I spent an incredible amount of my pregnancy with Joshua researching the addition of a sibling to the family dynamic. I read stories to Isaac in preparation for Joshua’s homecoming. I thought I was prepared, until the night before when it hit me that everything was about to change. I just broke down. Memories of my introduction to motherhood and how it felt to hold my first baby were flooding into my brain. How could a second child compare? How could I feel as attached to this baby as I did to the precious child sleeping in the next room over that taught me how to be a mother?

The very next evening, as Joshua came into this world and my heart did not split in half but instead grew exponentially, I understood.  When Isaac came to the hospital to meet his brother, he immediately began referring to him as “my Joshie.” Nothing could have been sweeter.

Here I am, 8 weeks or so from adding a third son to our family. You would think by now I would understand that worrying about how it is all going to work out is for not. Yet, that is just what I am doing. Once again, I cannot wrap my brain around having enough love for another child. I can’t picture him yet or feel his chubby hand in mine. I can’t see a clear picture of what it will be like to have three sons and love them all so intensely.  However, I know that it is going to happen. Sometime in the very near future, my heart will once again grow exponentially and make room for Elijah Harris. I am sure I will sit in that hospital room, staring into his eyes and wondering how our family would ever have been complete without him.

PS – read something today about having children that just blew me away, once again Amber nailed it. Go see for yourself.

So late last week I shot 3 different pictures on 3 different days of my 29 week belly. Once I finally downloaded them I was shocked at how different they all look:

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Not sure if it is the clothes, the food I ate that day or what but what a difference a day makes!

On my commute, I glance at the clouds. They are lined up, with the sun behind them, looking like lighted rails. As though some cosmic train could come barreling down them, whistle blowing, at any moment. As this pregnancy enters it’s third and final stage, I find myself caught up in moments like this. Where all is still and calm and I am lost in thought. Other times, most of the time, I am doing the opposite of cloud gazing. I am the train, barreling down, whistle blowing. SWIM LESSONS! LUNCHES PACKED! DRY CLEANING! SCHOOL SUPPLIES! I SAID GO TO BED NOW-STOP ARGUING-EAT YOUR CARROTS!

Life as a mother and wife can eat you alive. There is always something to do, someone for whom to do it. Glimpses of clarity, the girl you once were – flip flops and pig tails – come out of nowhere and leave you stunned. How did I get here? I never thought the last words before my love and I fell asleep would be, “make sure you get the dry cleaning tomorrow” and “did you set the coffee machine for 6:15?” I don’t know when the transformation occurred, it seems like yesterday I was driving too fast in my Volkswagen, No Doubt blaring on the radio, with a Big Gulp of Diet Coke perched perilously between my legs as I reached to shift to 5th gear.

Now, I wear cardigans. I keep extra sweaters in my car in case the weather changes. I drive a car with three rows and I think to myself, I need to switch the clothes in the washer over to the dryer before I go to bed so that they don’t smell like mildew, while I am applying anti-aging moisturizer. My best days now are not filled with Big Gulps, rock bands and tanning beds. They are spent chasing my kids around a swing set, hearing Joshua say “I cozy you Mama” and grasping my husbands hand in church, turning our fingers over to see that after all these years it still feels the same.

Somewhere between 2 hours of pushing, midnight feedings and mortgages, I grew up. As we prepare to open our hearts and lives to another child, I will admit I am a little scared of loosing a bit more of the pig tailed girl who drives too fast. I am more scared however, of looking back twenty years from now and missing the 30 something woman who knew what it felt like to soothe a two year old Joshie in the middle of the night, walk a 5 year old Isaac to his first day of kindergarten and feel the subtle movement of a precious child in my swollen belly.

It is so easy to look back and say “what if” about our lives and experiences. I want to know that I am here, in this moment for a reason, for a season of time. While I am here, I will collect every memory of my young children and hold it tight for this too,  much like the transmission on that old Volkswagen, will eventually become a memory.