Baby Update

So today, January 3rd was the expected due date for our baby. Expected being the key operative word. As you can tell I am still pregnant and for all I know I could be pregnant for another week. :( I am very much ready for this baby to be born. We have waited 9 long months for it and not to mention waited to find out if it's a boy or girl. I know we have driven everyone else crazy with making them wait to find that out too. For that I am sorry, but honestly it is kind of fun. You have to admit that. The suspense of finding out what it is can't be beat. In the past few days we have had several people call us asking if the baby was born yet. So in case you were wondering, (but didn't want to ask,) the baby is quite comfy in Mom's womb and doesn't want to leave quite yet. We will be sure to let everyone know once it decides to make it's debut into the world. For family members we have people assigned to call our family members and let them know. Don also said he would post something onto Facebook for all you Facebookers out there. I may too if I find a moment between contractions. :) I think he plans on sending a text out to people who have texting capabilities as well.

But I find myself getting impatient these last few days waiting and wondering when it will happen. I know Don is too. Every morning and through out the day he is asking if I had any contractions yet or if my water broke yet. I think he thinks I won't tell him. Hehehe... and I always tell him he would be the first to know. Than he is giving the baby pep talks trying to get it to come out, so far it is not working, but we keep trying. My Dr. did say most babies are late especially if it is your first baby. So I know it's not abnormal, but I just want to hold our little baby in our arms and finally have it meet it's family.

I must say I am nervous about the prospect of going into labor and birthing this child, but the funny thing is I am also excited for it. I must be crazy for saying that, but I know it will be worth it in the end to bring this beautiful child into this world. And for that reason alone gives me the strength and courage to endure it, (of course with some good drugs too!) I feel as though I know my child already. I feel so connected to it and I know that connection and love will even be stronger once I hold it in my arms. If there is one thing for sure, this baby will be loved by many people. I think Motherhood and Fatherhood is one of the greatest things a person can do in their life time. It requires self sacrificing and the ability to love unconditionally. Don and I are blessed to have parents that taught us well. I know we will draw from their knowledge and incorporate what they taught us in raising this child. I am sure we will make lots of mistakes, but above all, we will love this child.

I look back on our 6 years of marriage and a lot of people find it odd that we waited so long to have kids. I personally don't and wouldn't have changed that decision for anything. Marriage is hard enough, but throw a kid in there and it gets harder. I think for Don and I we needed that time to be together as just Don and Mandi. I remember that first year of marriage was tough. There was a lot of things to get use to. Especially with our personalities. I knew who I married, but things change when you move in with someone. I realized how strong willed we both were and how different we were. When you date you are so blind, you accept each other's flaws more easily I think. Its new and you are in love. We spent those first few years learning to give and take... Learning to agree to disagree and be ok with that. Sometimes we just won't see eye to eye on things and we have to compromise. We spent a few years learning to deal with that and I feel we are much better at it now than we were 5 years ago. I also feel that we had a lot of time to be selfish and do what we wanted to do with out worrying about a child. We had so much fun together and I plan on still having fun, but now we have to actually plan for it. I feel like we got to know each other on another level before we become parents. I think people and relationships change when that happens. It seems like it is inevitable. But I hope to hold onto those first six years to help remember who we are and strive to be that fun young couple still, but with a baby now. It's a bittersweet ending to that chapter in our lives, but I know this new one will be even more exciting I am sure. We are ready for it.

Today I found myself in a frenzy of cleaning. Not sure if that is "nesting" or just wanting to get our Christmas stuff packed away. Both Don and I just wanted to be done with Christmas and on to the new year. Plus we knew we would have many visitors stopping by soon once the baby is here so we wanted our house to be ready for that and for the baby. So we spent most of the day cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. We went through all our Christmas stuff, got rid of stuff and packed everything else away. Than we did a deep clean in most of our house. Don scrubbed our floors and made them sparkly clean. We dusted, cleaned our bathroom, cleaned our kitchen, organized, did many, many loads of laundry. I was washing anything and everything today. I just wanted everything to be clean. There are still some things I want to do, but my back was killing me so I took a break and started updating our blog. Part of me thinks I was trying to put myself into labor with all my cleaning today. :) It didn't work... I still have more stuff to do so I am not giving up hope yet! But rest assured friends and family, we will let you know once the baby is here.

So last but not least, I will leave you with some pictures that were taken by a photographer friend of mine back in October. Deann did a maternity photo shoot of me when I was about 7 months along. Hopefully I won't look like this for much longer!!! But I was glad she was able to capture my little baby growing in my belly.