Tick Tock...

Tomorrow we are officially 40 weeks pregnant. While I am excited, I am also beginning to feel like this baby is never going to arrive and I'll be kicking it out just in time for kindergarten.

Even with how much I love being pregnant, love my belly, love feeling someone alive inside of my tummy wiggling around, love pondering the miracle of life, and even though I am a bit sad that this will be our last baby, I am ready. Did you hear me baby? I. am. ready. And so are you. I'd like my body back now please.

My mom arrived at our house on Wednesday and today is Sunday (Grey Cup Sunday to be precise). We've been waiting four entire days now for something to happen. My water to break, contractions to begin, baby to drop. Nothing. Four days really feels like forever when all you're doing is waiting.

I've tried everything I can think of to get baby to come out, some of which were suggested by friends. Also drinking loads of raspberry leaf tea, walking as much as I can (I even walked around the grocery store two days ago for nearly two hours), shovelling the deck, running after one year old twins, playing outside in the snow, sitting hunched over on the floor with them playing, colouring. Nada. No dice. Baby doesn't seem to get my hints.

Baby is stubborn. Like its mommy. And like its daddy. Great.

I feel baby kicking me often from the inside and I think, "just use that energy to come out!" It seems as though my body may not know what to do. Maybe I'm lacking those special hormones which signal for things to get moving along. Or possibly baby is waaay too comfy in there. I've tried poking my belly, pushing down to create less space and even issuing an evacuation order.





Come on baby lets get this party started. Each day you stay inside of my tummy is another day you are growing larger and we all know you are large enough now. I'm already packing away all of our newborn clothing and am afraid you will not fit into the massive amounts of newborn diapers we've bought for you. You could practically walk out on your own if you stay much longer..

The ultrasound we had done nearly a week ago said that baby was measuring 9lbs 5-6oz. I certainly hope that was wrong and that baby will be more along the lines of 8lbs something, but the longer we have to wait the more I'm sure this baby is going to be huge. If you've seen my husbands head size, that's a very terrifying thought..

Tomorrow is also our 40 week OB appointment. I plan to ask them to strip my membranes this time in the hopes of starting immediate labour. The 38 & 39 week appointments I'd turned it down. (Beginning to think that might've been a mistake, but at the time I didn't quite want to go directly into labour - just in case.)

I've been feeling so very beyond exhausted this week, more than I've ever been in my life. I am out of breath all the time and I can't get comfortable in any position - which is perplexing to me, since in my first pregnancy my belly was much larger and carried nearly 13lbs of kids in it at once...

I'm normally a mover and get stuff done but I can barely manage to do anything without feeling like I've run a race. I'm sleeping in as much as I can. (Thank you to my mom and husband for watching my babies so I can rest.) I'm napping in the afternoons and going to bed early. All of which is not leaving me feeling rested, but hoping that if labour ever freaking begins, I'll have enough energy to get by.

Our OB has told us that they normally induce between 41+1 & 31+3 days. That would put us for an induction between Dec 3rd (my father-in-law's birthday) & Dec 5th. I refuse to wait that much longer! That's a whole mother week! But, I have zero choice in this matter and all I can do is hope that baby continues to stay healthy and think positive thoughts for labour which must be coming soon.. Right? Please??

Waiting for Baby

As of two days ago, I am the most pregnant I have ever been, having delivered our twins at 38+2. Today I am 38+4 with our littlest Smeltz.

At week 36, I noticed I suddenly had pregnancy symptoms (up until then I was relatively normal). I started to have to pee all of the time and started waking at night. I also had no urge to sleep and was often awake until 2am. I had a surge of energy and got a large amount of baby tasks completed, along with wrapping Christmas gifts and writing out all of our Christmas cards. I was having trouble breathing for a few weeks, which I'd attributed to being anemic (and on iron) this pregnancy.

At week 37, I developed muscle pain in the left side of my buttocks. It began to hurt to walk anywhere for even short distances. I found that stretching and warm baths helped if only temporarily.

Now at in week 38 (or the 39th week of gestation - depending on how you count it), I've noticed that it helps to push on the back of my left hip while walking and the pain lessens, though it is still ridiculously difficult to walk and I've become extremely slow. My waddle is very pronounced this pregnancy. I laughed out loud at myself last night, as I noticed I must resemble a giant penguin.

I've also noticed a huge decline in energy! (And my energy levels are normally higher than average.) I'm way beyond exhausted after even doing just small tasks. Yet at the same time I can't get comfortable in any position enough to rest. The good part is I haven't had trouble breathing for over a week now and even though our OB tells me that baby hasn't dropped, I'm feeling like something has changed. Apparently in second pregnancies the baby doesn't normally drop until you're in labour. So I'll take comfort in that, and hope for the best. At least I know that baby is head down and hopefully that will help once labour does begin.
Above (left) is my twin belly from week 37 & on the right my 38 week singleton belly. I am still measuring way ahead even with one baby living in my tummy but you can see a rather large difference in size. I had my twins over a week after the left pic was taken.

I've been wondering a lot lately how I ever did this while pregnancy thing with a twin belly?! How did I not have all of these symptoms? All I ever had with them was hip pain (same side) around week 32 (which quickly went away magically on it's own) and numbing of my hands from excess fluids from week 30 until after their birth. Otherwise my twin pregnancy seemed much easier towards the end of my third trimester. Perhaps because I didn't have two one year olds to chase after..

Oh how I miss lying in bed watching the food channel eating KD and mashed potatoes brought me by my husband. For now I just try to stay relatively comfortable while trying to keep our toddlers on their schedule as to not upturn their routines, and wait for baby to give me a sign that it's time to be born.

My mom and my husband have been a huge help with caring for our kids lately and for that I am thankful. I know that now I can not do it alone (even though I'm stubborn and still think I can). I'm too tired to really do much with my littles lately and I feel a bit guilty for that, but I know that sometime soon I'll be back to colouring on the floor and running outside with them.

I'm doing my best to enjoy my last pregnancy belly. To cherish every movement inside of my tummy and the wonder and amazement of creating a life. On one hand, I don't want this part of my life to be over. It seems so final. Our last newborn baby. My last birth experience.

On the other hand, I'm excited to meet our baby. To see them healthy and screaming. To see what/who it is after waiting nearly this entire calendar year in anticipation. To look into their eyes and meet our child. A person I grew inside of my body, from a single cell. We get to take them home (this blows my mind) and care for and teach them. To reclaim my own body (eventually). To know that our little family is finally complete.

And now we wait...

Our Second Halloween

It's hard to believe that our twins will be 22 months on Remembrance Day. It doesn't feel like they've been here that long, more like they were just born. They've changed so much and so very quickly. We've gone from teeny infants, to walkers, to talkers. Now we are entering a wonderful phase in which they can tell us what they'd like and talk about the world they see. I'm really loving communicating with my little cubs. It also seems true that your love continues to grow for your kids more and more as time goes by (I hear this is true until the teenage years - but thats a whole other story).

We just had our second Halloween, and this year we took the kids to a local community Halloween party. They seemed to like seeing the kids but were still a bit too young this year to go and play. They enjoyed some mini cupcakes, some candy and seeing all of the people. We picked out pumpkins for charity at the pumpkin patch as well. The night before Halloween we carved our pumpkins with Grandma & Grandpa.

My sweet little kitty

My adorable puppy

This year we also went Trick-or-Treating for the very first time! We went up and down our new street with, Grandpa's help, while Grandma handed out candy. Claire & Hayden loved going door to door once they figured out what we were doing, and they even said "Thank You" at almost every house. They still hated wearing their costume hoods this year (I'm not certain that will ever change). Claire was a cute little black cat & Hayden was a fuzzy little brown dog. They also loved playing with the glowsticks we bought them but most of all they loved seeing all of the Halloween decorations on everyone's porches. Then when it was all done, we made pumpkin muffins together.

Hayden trick-or-treating with daddy's help

Claire trick-or-treating with Grandpas help

Making pumpkin muffins with Grandma & Grandpa

The littlest Smeltz should be here in the next couple of weeks! As of today we are 37+3 & are in week 38 of pregnancy. We are still waiting for the nice surprise to see if we're having a girl or a boy to complete our little family. It seems as though our pregnancy has flown by this time and soon we will have three kids under age 2! (I may need to take up coffee drinking!) I sometimes wonder how exactly I am going to do this with three, but then I know we'll all figure it out together. I am beginning to get really excited to meet this new little person who has been living inside of my rather large belly for some time now. I'm still just as amazed by pregnancy as I ever was - but I know this is to be my last one. It is happy yet bittersweet in that our pregnancy is coming to an end soon and I will not experience this feeling of being kicked from the inside again. I am doing my best to enjoy babys movements and in the back of my mind I know this is actually the easy part. Caring for twin toddlers while very pregnant and with all of the changes we've experienced this year, has been nothing short of difficult, but I am also doing my best to enjoy my toddlers now while I have a bit more time to just sit and colour or cuddle them. The future will be wonderful and our family of five will make wonderful memories together - if my sanity can just survive the next year!

We have been getting everything prepared for baby's arrival. We have the hospital bags packed (one for mommy, the cord blood kit, and two diaper bags - one for a girl and one for a boy). We have the bassinet set up and ready to put into our bedroom for our first night home and we have furniture on order for the nursery, which we plan to use once baby is 6 months old. Our house has randomly stored baby things for a girl or a boy all over - two swings, two bouncy seats, two exersaucers, two travel size playpens, etc - all hand me downs from Claire & Hayden.

We have also hired a doula for the baby's birth this time and are looking forward to a smooth happy birth. We've also hired a separate doula for postpartum care, who will help with our kids as well as helping me with baby and doing some light cooking and cleaning. My mom is coming to stay again also for a little while, which will be a very big help until we can establish some sort of schedule. Then soon after it will be Christmas and we are hoping to have lots of family around for 2-3 weeks to help out. Looking forward to seeing everyone and introducing them to baby.

36+2, October 30th, 2013