The Nine-Month Marathon

I sort of suddenly occurred to me that within the next five weeks I'm going to have four children.

Four.

And two of them are going to be stuck on my boobs for months. How lame is it that I'm totally excited that I got a script from my OB for a new breast pump? My old one was purchased when Milo was born and used approximately 600 times during Violet's first year. It's looking a little sad... But I get to go pick out a new one, yay!!

We're busy prepping our cloth diapers. I just ordered wet bags, diaper pail liners, and cloth diaper-safe diaper cream. The only diaper supplies left to order are the all-in-ones for daycare, and those won't be really necessary until daycare time this fall.

So, up until now my focus had really been on making this a healthy pregnancy and on keeping the wee lasses inside as long as possible. With a negative fetal fibronectin test, I'm pretty much assured to get to 34 weeks without pre-term labor. Since the ruckus of early last week, my contractions have subsided tremendously, to the point where I'm not tracking them by the hour anymore, but by larger chunks of time -- like three in four hours. Boy am I glad for that!!

But now? Well, we're past the concern of having micro-premies. We're getting ever closer to having babies that would need minimal NICU time. They're busy putting on weight and practicing breathing right now. In fact, all the practice breathing leads to hiccups on one or both sides of my belly most of the day, which cracks me up!

I'm not going to officially say that we're in the home stretch, but I can definitely see that finish line up ahead. I won't wish the babies out for amything because this is really and truly my last pregnancy and, knowing that, this last month is bittersweet.

I have developed one new symptom: my ankles have been swelling a bit. It might not be apparent to someone who rarely sees them, but I've got crazy narrow ankles normally and they're swollen for me. I didn't really retain water with Milo or Violet, so this is new for me. I've been boosting my fluid intake to try and flush it out, but it could just be that I'll have to deal with this until the end. Oh, well, one can't expect to measure 47 weeks pregnant with no water retention, huh? It probably means my weight gain at Thursday's OB appointment will be a little shocking, but, again, my weight gain total will be less than it was with my other kids, so I'm not really going to complain. I might be limping over that finish line, but I'm going to get there!