Opps! When you don't blog 1/2 your pregnancy...

   This poor baby has had much less blog coverage than my pregnancy with Theo... I told myself this would never happen when I was looking through my own family's baby photo albums and noticed the pictures severely lessen after my sister Annie was born, and then come to a near desert once Turner arrived. I can't say I blame my mom... her pregnancies were so painful that when I see long-time friends of the family they all get a far-off look in their eyes when they say, "I remember how sick your mom was when she was pregnant with ______ (insert any of our names)..." and then they snap back to present and are full of extra compassion for me.
   I am not a martyr and know billions of women are probably pregnant, but I have to document all this so I can recall how I felt and show our daughter that I did make an effort. Pregnancies for me are hard... look back through my past blog entries and you will see that I was very very sick with Theo and in the midst of a lot of life changes. It was a amazing/stressful time of life.
   I must admit that when I was less sick 1st trimester of this pregnancy I thought I'd got off scott-free. I chalked it up to baby boy hormones making me more sick than a girl and then: BOOM! I got slapped in the face with gestational diabetes. I was so sad that I couldn't eat desserts that I spent a good week feeling sorry for myself, another week mad at my mom (she had GD with Tyler) (jk I know it wasn't her fault), and then a third week making a list of all the food I wanted my family to bring up to the hospital after this baby is born. At the top of the list?: a midnight truffle blizzard from DQ... anyone who has spent more than an hour with me knows how obsessed I am with this... I dream about them at least once a week (I know I write dramatically, but that is not an exaggeration). Luckily, I am delivering at Lakeside Hospital. What to know how close the nearest DQ is? 0.15 miles away. Across the street. I wish I could say that the proximity of my labor and delivery room to DQ had nothing to do with my hospital decision, but sadly, that would be a lie.
   Another factor of this pregnancy has been the even greater amount of change and transition in this season of life. Another little tid-bit is that I am not the greatest with change. I'm getting better, but it is still hard for me. Paul and I are closing next month on our fist house and while this is super-exciting, my pregnancy hormones don't seem to help with the ups and downs that come with becoming home owners. Oh, did I mention that my due date is Sept. 2? Literally 3 days after our closing date...
  The stress of house stuff (and having a toddler whose personality seems to be tipping precariously closer to his father's childhood temperament than mine) sent me into possible pre-term labor this last week. I'm serious. This is not a joke! At almost 33 weeks you evidently DO NOT want to have contractions 3 mins apart for several hours. And I, CERTAINLY, do not want to go into preterm labor ever again if it means 3 different nurses jabbing needles in my arm trying to find a suitable vein for an IV and using language like "her vein blew out", "she has small vein," or "good luck, her veins roll." This is my idea of torture! Especially when you realize the next day at your OB visit that you weren't even having preterm labor if you're not dilating. He classifies it as "uterine irritability." I almost blacked out cold thinking that I let those nurses poke and prod me and give me shots of anti-labor drugs for nothing. I have, however, told Paul several times that I am so emotional this pregnancy that even my uterus is irritable...
   Seriously though, I am so excited for this baby to come. I feel like it will be a smooth transition because I know more what to expect. I remember after having Theo and feeling like I would never have a 'normal' life again. The newborn phase is so all-consuming that I had days where I felt overwhelmed. This time, I have grace for myself because I now know that the newborn stage is a few months. It goes so fast and you never get it back. Sure some days are hard, but it is the most intense/ magical time I've ever had. 
  So here is my blog at almost 33 weeks. I love you Baby Girl Lanphier and all this seems trivial to go through compared with the privilege of getting to be your mom!