After my OB’s prediction of labor to come, we spent Friday in a frenzied state of timing contractions, finishing up last minute packing, organizing and making last minute arrangements.

We’d bought everything Baby would need. The carseat was installed. The stroller was standing proudly in our living room, too pretty to fold down and put away. An early morning Saturday appointment that would have taken us two hours away from home and the hospital I was planning on delivering at was rescheduled.

Just in case.

Then nothing happened. My contractions stopped. I tried get my mind off the big nothing that was going on because I still had two weeks until my due date.

Sunday morning, Kaleb and Harry were out on a donut run and I was on the phone with my mom discussing all those wonderful pregnancy and child birth things that you probably don’t know about unless you have already been pregnant and had a child. Things like mucus plugs, the 5-1-1 rule, skin-to-skin, etc.

After a particularly eloquent description of my absolute lack of contractions at the moment and a certain very strange, very annoying, almost-leaking that was my mom laughed.

“I think your water broke.”

No way. I thought broken water equaled gushing. When you hear of someone’s water breaking, you think drama. Frantic, crazy, running around searching for hospital bags and car keys and making hurried phone calls to tell everyone that it was time.

Yeah, not so much. Instead I stood there giggling on the phone. Especially after having spent the last week googling “How will I know when I am in labor?”

“I’m in labor? I’m in labor! Awesome.”

Harry and Kaleb walked in the door a few minutes later with donuts and strawberry milk. While they were pulling out plates, cups and napkins I told Harry about the leaking and the conversation with my mom.

We called the doctor who told us to get to the hospital and check in at triage and then the drama started.

I’d forgotten to finish packing Kaleb’s toy bag. I hadn’t eaten breakfast. I needed to find something to wear because I sure as hell wasn’t going to show up at the hospital in my sweats. We called Harry’s sister to ask her to meet us at the hospital to do the Kaleb hand-off.

Then we were on our way. Quickly, quietly and without much fuss. I sent my mom a text as we got on the freeway.

On way to the hosp. Call you after triage…

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I’ve lost the will to keep track of minutes, hours, and days. You would too if you were me. Between the warm, snuggly newness of Miles and the comfortable familiarity of Kaleb, I’m so overwhelmed with love for my boys that not much else matters.

One of these days I’ll get back to doing things like cooking and cleaning and returning phone calls.

Until then… *shrugs*

Miles Victorino
6 pounds, 12 ounces.
19 inches
born at 7:25am on February 13, 2012

I was all smiles (between contractions) at our OB appointment today. Baby is locked and loaded. 3cm dilated, 90% effaced. Woot woot, party time over here! Doctor is saying she doesn’t even think it’ll be a week before we’re heading to the hospital. I’m secretly hoping that we won’t make it past the weekend.

Everything that we can do is done. The bags are packed and waiting by the door. The crib, bouncer, travel system, and everything else have been put together and are patiently waiting for their chance to be used. Time to sit back and twiddle my thumbs. Or maybe finish that baby mobile I’ve been working on all week.

The beard has reached epic proportions. 85 days. And if the due date holds true, 15 days to go. I’m not sure though – I think the beard is coming off sooner than later.

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Thirty-six weeks.

Now I can finally tell people that I really am nine months pregnant. Although I’m sure they don’t need me to tell them that. Since baby dropped, my waddling has become more pronounced. And my feet no longer look like my own. Seriously. I had to laugh this morning when I woke up because my ankles were so fat.

Nesting has kicked in. I think. Not so much in terms of having the urge to clean, because I hate cleaning. I’d much rather sit back, delegate and then bask in the happiness of a clean house after Harry and Kaleb have finished doing all the work.

{ baby's robot quilt }

I’ve been working my patooty off trying to get the boys’ bedding done. Finally. When did I order that fabric? Back in December? Yup. Where has it been all this time? Oh, sitting in my crafting bag getting wrinkled? Affirmative. None of that matters anymore, though, because I’m getting ish done now. Baby has a nearly complete quilted comforter and Kaleb’s duvet cover is about 45% done.

{ kaleb's duvet cover }

We’re now at the stage of weekly OB appointments. Yay. The end is coming up fast! I’m sure the last thing you want is to know whats going on with my vag but I’m happy to share that we’ve got progress from last week’s appointment. I’m dilated to two centimeters. Woot, woot! I thought I was going to cry last week when she said nothing was doing down there because I was so sure there was something going on.

Both of the Yaya’s are sure that we won’t make it to next week’s appointment because of the upcoming full moon. The part of me that is pretty much done being pregnant says “Bring it on!” The other part of me is liking the quiet and freedom to get up and make runs to the grocery store for Fig Newtons and Cherry Coke without having to give much though to anything beyond grabbing my purse and the car keys.

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Not that a sign with a mustache that says “les garçons” has anything whatsoever to do with robots, but I’ve been kind of obsessing about the idea of making this sign for the boys room for a few weeks now.

If you’re like me, you’ve got random wood board, blocks and signs laying around your house from long abandoned craft projects. Just slap a coat or two of white paint over whatever it is that you’re using, let it dry then paint in the color of your choice. *I only used one coat of blue.

Once the blue coat was dry, I pencil sketched a mustache onto the board (need mustache inspiration? here). I painted over the sketch with black acrylic paint and then painted on the letters freehand, using a q-tip. Hammer a couple of nails into the back of your sign, attach a bit of yarn using a slip stitch then find the perfect spot and hang it up.

Voilà!

Can you believe its already been 35 weeks??? I can’t.

The months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds of this pregnancy have seemed to alternate between flying by in a blur and creeping slowly.

Now that we’re down to the wire, I can’t wait for Baby to join us. My dreams of beautiful chubby cheeked babies and happy, smooth hospital deliveries are ramping up and I find myself wanting so bad that I can’t stand it. He’ll be here soon but now I really am starting to feel like the waiting is going to kill me.

I’m not the only one who is about to expire from anticipation. Kaleb has started up his countdown and makes sure to announce every morning how many days we have left until D-Day. Hopefully Baby makes his appearance somewhere around that date, otherwise he’s going to have a seriously disappointed big brother.

Last Sunday, my fantastic in-laws threw Harry and I a surprise shower. It was a surprise for me. He’d been tasked with getting me where we needed to be on time without giving anything away. Good job husband! I had absolutely no idea. A girl could get used to walking into rooms and hearing all of her loved ones yelling out “surprise!” Its such a wonderful feeling, knowing that we are loved and that everyone just as excited about the arrival of Baby as we are.

This week’s appointment held a little more excitement than all of our previous ones. Despite dreams of Baby moving so much that he flipped himself breech, he’s still where he’s supposed to be. And his head is *right-there* according to the doc. She confirmed that the God awful hip pain that has started up again is definitely sciatica – which sucks but Baby will be here soon and it will all have been worth it. I’ve just got to remind myself of that when it hurts to climb into bed or in and out of the car every day.

day 76

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I can’t say it enough – I’m loving the fact that dystopian fiction is so in right now. There are just so many good books in this particular genre. As a person with an occasionally over-active imagination, its not hard for me to picture a world of extreme government regulations on where we can go, what we can think and who we can associate with. *shrugs*

Anywho – Delirium is a worthwhile read. The idea that “love” is against the law and treated as a disease to be cured in this story is what makes it subtly different from some of the other dystopian fiction books I’ve read. I liked this book so much more than Matched (which at a passing glance seems somewhat similar).

I was a little disappointed in the ending but that had more to do with the romantic in me than the quality of writing(which is excellent, in my opinion). What can I say? I love happy endings.

What are you reading this week?

There are so many beautiful examples. These are all going into my mental idea book.