31 weeks 3 days

I am 31 weeks and 3 days pregnant! Very exciting and the time is flying. I am having fun with this pregnancy and thank goodness...I have been remaining healthy and strong. As I look back on my other pregnancy journals, this one seems to be one of my easiest yet. Let's hope it stays that way!

I've been getting some contractions in the evenings lately. They are not lasting too long, and each week they tend to get stronger and stronger, but I'm getting used to it. I am imagining it will stay this way until real labor hits in a few short weeks (about 8 weeks until due date!!)

I met with Pam, my midwife, today. She is an unbelievable person! Everyone who meets her knows she is very special. She is one of those people who just immediately bonds with you. She seems to have a special "third eye" as I call it and can often predict and know things about people, better than themselves. She seems to know when people will go into labor, what kind of birth they will have and manages to always get to wherever you need her to in time, despite having many homebirth clients. My appointments with her often last a few hours, as we sit, have tea and chat. It is so much different than my OB/GYN appts, which rush you in and out in 10 minutes or less...and on to the next patient. Pam takes her time with each person and really gets to know all of her homebirth clients. She is awesome. Homebirth is awesome! I'd never choose anything else after experiencing the best care from her.

Baby is doing great, is in the head down position, ready to come...hopefully waiting another couple months though. She estimates the baby is about 4-4 1/2 pounds now...a perfect size. Kateri and Luanna come with me to all my appts, and have fun playing with all the toys Pam sets up for them. Today, Luanna slept on Pam's couch during the appt (it happened to be her naptime I guess). Kateri helped Pam with the stethoscope and listened to Baby. Kateri has been insisting the baby is a boy, and so she said she wanted to help listen for her baby brother's heartbeat.

As far as names go...Ken and I have decided to put our feet down and stick with our initial naming decisions....to forego all the kids complaining and other names they've come up with. Ken and I are just basically tired of all the name debating amongst the boys....so now we're like, You know what...we've decided and that's it. No more decisions and debates on it. So, whether the boys like it or not, we are sticking with our initial name choices and that's it. The boys are not necesarily thrilled, but at this point, I don't care. It's not their choice to make and they were only confusing us more with too many options. So, it feels good to finally have made some real choices, to stick with our initial decision and to have both the boy and girl names set and ready to go.

Well, off to get some sleep, and try to rest while I still can.