The 39 Week Baby Belly

Baby is still cooking at 39 weeks and 5 days! If this baby follows suit with big sister Evie, he/she will be born on Sunday, April 6th! But I've learned a lot of things in pregnancy and delivery and one of them is that labor and delivery have a mind of their own! So who really knows when Baby O. is going to show up and decide, "Hey, today's a good day for a birthday!" It's kind of fun thinking which day his/her birthday might be. I'm to the point now where I make sure the house is picked up and relatively clean every night before we go to bed "just in case." Hopefully I don't go crazy long like 42+ weeks because that's a lot of nights going to bed with "what if it's tonight!" Every pregnant mom seems to tell themselves they won't think that, but truth of the matter is that you do! I'm surprisingly not very uncomfortable and not in that "get this baby out of me I'm tired of being pregnant," I am just so excited to meet this baby and see who God has added to this family...a boy, or a girl!

My belly is shaped like a literal torpedo. My friend Katie laughs about it all the time. It is a very odd and unusual shape. My belly with Evie looked the same way. Girl maybe? 

 My belly button sticks out so far these days. It's hysterical. Evie always pokes it and you can see it through my shirt a mile away! 

Baby O's birthday party is ready to go. The kids insisted the baby needed a cake and presents on his/her birthday. Evie informed me that she would help the baby open the presents. (I'm thinking they just want cake and presents more than a celebration of their new baby brother or sister. haha). Looks like we have a new tradition. They thought the zero candle was hilarious. 

I don't know if this happens to just me, but I do get sentimental for the "family" as we know it changing every time a child is added. This might sound terrible, but let me try and explain. When it was just Jon and I, I remember being a little sad that "just us" was ending. Then we had Mekonen and our little family was one of three and I was simply overjoyed with this little boy and our little family of three.

I remember before Evie was born, feeling sad that our family as we knew it was going to change drastically and how was this next baby going to fit in? And it did change. And it was just as awesome as when we added Mekonen.

But this time, changing our "family as we know it" has that normal "sad" feeling, but also carries a much deeper and significant change for us, and it can become quite emotional in many ways just thinking about it. We've been relishing in these last days with our "family of four" status looking back on the creation of this family and we are in awe. With humility and an overwhelming understanding of God's grace we stop and think to ourselves, "We can't believe we are here." We've walked some crazy roads together the last three years and there's something deeply rooted between our hearts that couldn't have been made any other way. This group of four has a tenacity and fight to it that you will have difficulty finding anywhere else. The season of "family of four" will forever hold a deep, emotional place in our life. It's where life really began and where God's mercies, for the first time, were really understood.

Adding a child to this family represents so very much.

We are so thankful to be here. 

So thankful.