Grand Re-Entrance

In celebration of my re-entrance to the blogging world, I thought it would be appropriate to post this blog that I started writing on 10/26/2009 (the day before my sweet Tiny Princess was born), and never finished.

So, as our sweet little Tatum could arrive any day now, I think its appropriate to do one (maybe the last) pregnancy update blog! With just 3 days left until our due date, I am still loving pregnancy (so suck on that haters)! I have found that throughout this entire pregnancy, people have always been ‘warning’ me about how sick of it I am going to get or how much I am going to hate _________ part- at first it was “just wait until it gets hot, you are going to be so miserable!”. Well, this was one of the hottest summers we have had in a while… and while it certainly was hot, I never hated being pregnant. Then, “oh, just wait until your belly gets so big you can hardly move”. Ha! In my opinion, the bigger the belly, the better!! Bring it on! Perhaps it does take a lot of grunting and a considerable amount of time to roll over in bed (poor Brian.. this happens several times a night due to discomfort and numerous potty trips), but its kinda fun. And perhaps I do get stuck in my car door or bump into everything in sight with my belly… still fun. Then it seemed that all they had left was “wait until the very end when you feel like you’re about to pop”. Pretty sure I’m about as close to the end as possible, but I am not anxious to ‘get this baby outta here’. As excited as I am to see what Tatum looks like and cuddle her in my arms, I am going to miss carrying her inside of my womb. I will miss feeling all of her movements (yes even the painful colon/bladder kicks and when she rolls her head around on my bladder). I really will miss being pregnant.

On that note, since there is really nothing left to “warn” me about regarding which aspects of pregnancy I am going to hate the most, people have switched to warning me about how much I am going to hate labor. However, I anticipate enjoying labor just as much as I have enjoyed this pregnancy. I am eagerly anticipating the experience.

I think that the only part of pregnancy that I have disliked has been all of the unwelcome advice I have gotten. Particularly regarding labor/delivery. The most common being that I absolutely must get an epidural and that I should get it as soon as I can upon arriving at the hospital. I am praying not to require an epidural, and to at least go as long as I possibly can without one. People just assume that because they or their wife had one, that epidurals are the only way to go and delivery simply cannot be accomplished without one. What is right for one person is not necessarily right for the next. I am happy that all of those women enjoyed their birth experience with an epidural, but that does not mean that is how I want my delivery to go.