Hi little man!
Another night and I am wide awake and your dad is snoring logs. Even Luke is all stretched out and snoring. So, I figured I would take the opportunity to write to you. 32 weeks old now - you just reached that a few minutes ago. 32 weeks!! We are definitely in single digit countdown now. I say we are 4-8 weeks away from seeing you. In some ways, that is the blink of an eye and in other ways, that is FOREVER. But, it sure is a lot closer than that first day where I sat looking at a pregnancy test going "You are kidding me, right?" Those days seem so far away now. The memories of being nauseous and hurling seem distant. The memories of having a brief 2nd trimester glow and burst of energy are faded. Now, all I think about is how I will get to see you soon. I think about being terrified of labor and your dad passing out. I think about seeing your face and smooching you. I think about looking at your tiny fingers and toes. Ok, I think about how tired I am or how my uterus hurts too but mostly, I day dream about you when you are here. I do tend to gloss over practical matters like feeding, sleeping, you screaming or having colic. I mostly focus on how cute you will be, how your family and friends are going to light up at seeing you and how your dad will fall asleep watching fox news with you laying on his chest. I really, seriously would pay for a pill that would put me asleep right now and have me wake up as they are handing you to me. Patience is not a virtue I have nor one that I have learned since you were conceived.
So, after all of that rambling, I should give you some scoop off our pregnancy program. As you may have learned in the last 27 weeks, we pay more attention to that program than we do our doctor :) 56 days remain until your due date! The program tells me that your activity level is going to peak now. Since you are gaining weight, you are running out of room and all of your octopus limbs are going to be smushed together as you are becoming a little chunker! You are supposedly sleeping 90% of the time. I can kind of see that. Your active times seem to be getting a bit less frequent. They have also changed. I don't seem to be getting big, violent bursts of movement - it seems to be a bit gentler and a bit more rolling. I don't know how to explain it but it is different. The big news is your ever important percentages. You now have a 97% chance of survival and only a 15% chance of medical complications.
I don't think that one year ago your dad and I would have ever thought in a million years that we would have a 97% chance of being parents in a few weeks. Amazing how much life can change in 12 months. In the last 12 months, we have lost Grampa Lang, we lost Grampa Bill, we married off Cory & gained Lauren, we got pregnant (and have kept you cooking!), we married off Jeremy & gained Kylie, we are anticipating Baby Jake's arrival and Baby Henry Harrington's arrival, we met little Baby Levi, and we have tried to put aside our grief over your 4 brothers to focus on you.
Tomorrow, your dad will be in KC crying over the Chiefs losing (just a prediction on my part) and we will be hanging out with the girls for our early Christmas celebration. Just think how lucky you are that next year during our friend Christmas celebration, you will have 3 girls (oh wait - and their moms) fawning over you and spoiling you rotten!
We will see you again on Tuesday morning and we can't wait. I will make you a deal. You give us one good session of pictures and I won't bug you about it again. I won't call you a turd for hiding from the camera. I won't ban you from hanging out with Baby Jake if you flip us off. Maybe, I won't even call you a big fat pig anymore. Just one good ultrasound session and I will close the door on my nagging. I think this will be one of our last comprehensive and long ultrasounds so I want to make it count. As our time is running out and your space to move around is running out, I don't expect many opportunities for good photos after Tuesday - until they are LIVE PHOTOS!! Also, I need one good shot for 3 Christmas presents :)
Well, little one, I will close by thanking you for bringing us so much hope and joy and really turning things around for us. However, as your Auntie Val and I were discussing tonight, your job is not over yet. None of us can bear to think of that 3% chance that something will go wrong. You have to do your part to stay in there cooking, breathing and growing. Then, when you are born, we will expect you to be healthy and ornery for many, many years. Then, your job is done.
One final thing, I am leaving you with some snapshots from the shower. I am missing one photo that your Gramma Debbie is going to have to send me of her, me and Gramma Debi D. But, other than that, your shower scrapbook pages are COMPLETE :)
