Any minute now

Lots of updates to catch up on!

First, I LOVED my baby shower! It was a fairly small gathering of many of my favorite women in my life, and it was just perfect. I felt so much love and support and excitement. I just can't wait for everyone to meet Regan. She is so loved it makes my heart swell. Heather even came all the way from Texas and surprised me!! What a great friend. I spent most of the next day washing, folding and putting tiny little girl clothes away in the nursery. Best weekend ever!

A couple of days ago, Regan and I had our first somewhat scary day. It all turned out to be fine, but for the hundredth time in this pregnancy, I thanked God and the stars for how lucky we've been. I went to my regular doc's appointment on Thursday. They had scheduled an ultrasound to make sure the amount of fluid around her was still okay because she's getting so big! That went great. No issues, fluid was fine, baby was moving around. Then they did my regular non-stress test, which they do for us every week now because I have a blood clotting disorder that makes my pregnancy a little riskier (or maybe a lot riskier - I don't really want to know) than normal. A non-stress test is simple. The nurse just straps the baby heart rate monitor and contraction monitor around my belly, and I get to lie in a recliner for 15 minutes while a machine measures her heart rate and movements. My favorite time of the week, usually! After about 10 minutes this time, the nurse showed the results to the doc, and came back in the room telling me I needed to head to Labor and Deliver at the hospital. She was very calm, told me not to worry and that the docs do this all the time. It was really just a precaution because the baby didn't seem very active, and they have better equipment and tests at the hospital. I was pretty calm about it; Regan had just been kicking me like crazy in the waiting room. But it was hard not to get nervous. So I went to the hospital, got registered (don't have to pre-register anymore, so that's one step done!) and was escorted into an L&D room. Paul was in class in Laramie, so I was on my own except for phone calls. I put on the gown, laid in the bed, got strapped into the same monitors and Regan almost immediately started moving around and being perfectly active. Of course I still had to lie there for 2 hours to make sure, but everything was fine and I went back to work. No one likes to be told to head to the hospital right away, but I'm glad my docs are being cautious.

And, final update: We made it to 37 weeks! Yay mommy and baby girl! The 37-week mark also marked something I'd been anticipating and dreading a bit since I did the math on my due date: the Dog Jog. The Dog Jog is an annual fundraiser for the Cheyenne Animal Shelter, which is where I work. And, being the marketing/fundraiser/community relations/media relations/catch all position I'm in, I get the privilege of organizing the Dog Jog. It's a 3-mile run or 1-mile walk in the park to raise money. Now, if they made me actually do the walk, I might not have made it. Walking from the registration tent to the bake sale tent was tough enough. But I did make it through the day, and with just a few grimaces. In fact, there was a woman there who looked just as pregnant as I am who did the 1-mile walk. More power to ya, sister. I'm gonna go have a seat in the shade.

I did a lot of delegating for this event. Being just 3 weeks before baby Regan is due, I knew there was a decent chance I wouldn't even make it out there. Still, I managed to stay very busy, and I'm very relieved that it's finished now. There are still lots of loose ends to wrap up at work, but the major stuff is done and now I feel like I can finally focus more on becoming a mommy. Now it's just a waiting game. My dad and I both have a feeling she'll come about a week early, which would put her arrival around Oct. 7. Two weeks from yesterday. If it happens that way, Paul and I have just one more weekend before we become parents. Crazy thought. Maybe we'll go club hopping.

Love to all!

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Whoa there, hormones. Easy. It's funny (or cruel) how raging hormones seem to amplify real and legitimate concerns, making it difficult to figure out if you're really as upset as you feel about something or just in a hormone-induced breakdown.

I wouldn't call last night's near-tearfest a breakdown. I only felt like crying while watching Paul play with the dog. Really, no tears escaped. But it was so sweet, the two of them jumping and running and having a grand old time like they do almost every night. Then it dawned on me. Everything is about to change. And even though there are some things about my life that I wouldn't mind changing, (no one is really, truly, 100% content, right? Otherwise there'd be no such thing as ambition.) but for the last several years, my relationship with my husband has been one of the only things that I'm really sure about. And it's about to change. How it will change, I don't know. It could even get stronger. But I always hear all these warnings: go on date nights, make time for the two of you alone, appreciate each other, and on and on. Life with a rugrat isn't easy, and the marriage can take the brunt. Imagining everything, I suddenly missed him.

For a second, he sat on the arm of the couch and I held his hand. I asked him not to change when we have a kid. He smiled and said okay, gave my head a rub, and went back to playing with the dog.  

I already love my little girl more than I can say, of course. But our pastor once said something that has stuck with me. The Cliff's Notes version is something like this: don't let the kids become the heads of the household. Don't ignore the rest of the world if only to ensure that your child's every want is perfectly fulfilled. Don't forget to nurture your relationship with your spouse even while being parents. In the long run, your children's happiness will fall in line with your own, and a happy marriage is the best way to model happiness for them. So it might mean that occasionally the kiddos stay home when we go out to dinner. It might mean we send them to bed an hour early so mom and dad can watch a grown-up TV show, alone, with wine instead of milk. And that has to be okay.

Actually, Paul joked between ball-bounces, I was planning on becoming more loving when we have a kid. But if you don't want me to change ...

I laughed. More loving is always nice.