Author: Becky

My husband was downloading a pregnancy app on my Droid tonight, and I said, “I don’t need ‘Pregnancy Assistant’! This is my fourth child!”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “I asked how many weeks you are and you didn’t know.”

He held up my Droid: complete, now that it has Pregnancy Assistant. “Here! This says you’re 25 weeks. The baby is 12 or 13 inches long and about 1-1/2 pounds.” Daddy’s looking out for you, Braxton! (You’d think he was a first-time dad!)

So now, when you ask how many weeks I am?. . . I don’t even have to remember. I can just pull out my Droid. There’s nothing like personalized pregnancy tech support for those of us with fourth-pregnancy amnesia!

. . . because Mara just said, “I’m writing the baby brother a card, but . . . how do you spell ‘Braxton’?” (Hopefully, she’ll be able to make the transition from “Braxton Hicks” when I quit calling him that and we choose an actual name!)

She cut out a heart on a piece of paper and wrote “Dear Braxton I <3 you From Mara.”

Then Mara wrapped two toys in a box “for the baby” and told Carissa that she couldn’t play with them any more. (“They’re for the baby now,” she informed Carissa.)

Mara wanted me to unwrap the “gifts” she brought for the baby.

Afterwards, she exclaimed, “I love you, little brother!” and kissed my belly.

With Micah’s pregnancy, I was on bedrest for about 3-4 weeks before he was born–early at week 32.

With Carissa’s pregnancy, I think I was so concerned about not having another 32-weeker, that I never fully comprehended what the alternative would be like: two-and-a-half months on bedrest as a stay-at-home-mom of two toddlers! Thanks to bedrest–along with 16 weeks of progesterone shots, procardia four times/day, steroid shots, and some terbutaline–Carissa did not come until her due date!  Forty lonnnnnng weeks!

With this pregnancy, I feel (cautiously) optimistic that we won’t have another preemie. I’m doing the progesterone shots again. Just like the last two pregnancies, I begin feeling Braxton Hicks contractions around week 20. I’m at week 24 now, and on very busy days I already feel enough contractions by the end of the day that I will lay down and rest. It’s around week 28 or 29 that I’ve gone to triage with contractions1-5 minutes apart (that won’t stop with rest) . . . I’m guessing that in about a month and a half I’ll be on procardia again and possibly on bedrest too.

So I’m planning. I’m calling it “bedrest prep.”

1) What things should we (or can we) “scale back” or eliminate from my life right now? Possibly things that I know caused contractions during the past two pregnancies.

Early on in the past two pregnancies, trips to the grocery store (with toddlers in tow) always brought lots of contractions. My mother-in-law graciously took over the grocery shopping this week. I will make the list–she will take one child and do the shopping. (Sounds like a good deal for me! 😉

2) What tasks need to be done before the baby gets here? or what things will I be unable to do once I go on bedrest?

• Sorting baby clothes. (I’m including preparing baby boy clothes, as well as giving away baby girl clothes.)
• Organizing summer clothes for Mara, Micah and Carissa. Making sure they have what they need for summer: clothes, shoes, swim, etc.
• Re-arranging Micah’s room to accommodate the baby (or at least planning how I’m going to do that).
• Making and freezing as many meals as I can to help our family while I’m on bedrest. The past two pregnancies we were very blessed by very giving, helpful friends in our church who provided meals for a couple of months! But knowing that it’s likely coming, I’m going to do all I can to be ready!

If I plan well during April and early May, we’re hoping that rather than bedrest, I can just do “modified life” from late May until the baby comes. (For example, limiting trips up and down stairs. Having Daniel help carry laundry baskets up and down the stairs.)

I’ve always wanted to try “once-a-month” cooking, and although that’s a little too ambitious for me at this stage, I am going to start “doubling” meals this month–we can eat one and freeze the other. If I do that all month, I should have a good stock of meals in the freezer. If the freezer is stocked with meals, I could pull something out and stick it in the oven, maybe along with a steam-in-the-bag vegetable or a salad kit–that way I’m not actually cooking, but still planning and arranging the meals without much physical exertion.

I’m excited to start “preparing.” (Of course, we will have to wait to see how everything turns out in the end.)

If you were at my house right now, you would see several baby clothes bins out in the living room–because I’ve been working on sorting all this stuff: baby stuff, summer stuff. . .

And on Saturday, I made two loaves of banana bread, three zitis, and two pans of enchiladas! (One of each goes into the freezer for “bedrest.”) It was a busy day, but I like having goals. . . I feel more purposeful with a deadline looming.

It was a big week for me!

I officially made the switch from chauffeuring three kids in carseats in the back of our Crown Vic–to becoming a minivan mom!

I never really pictured myself driving a minivan. (I don’t know what I thought we would drive, when we discussed having four children! Maybe a hovercraft–ha ha!  . . . Wow. That thought shows just how much I’ve been hanging around my 2-1/2-year-old son!)

But here I am. Driving the minivan.

While switching out the carseats from the Vic to the Odyssey, we went ahead and moved Carissa up to the “big kid” carseat. Her legs have hung off the end of the infant carseat for over three months now. So it was time. She looks so cute back there with her big sister Mara, looking at the world! I always love it when they transition, because they can see everything so much better. It’s been an exciting change for each of my kids!

This also happens to be the week that I inherited my husband’s Droid. I love the GPS feature. I will never call my husband “lost” again. And now thanks to Google Latitude (is there no end to the programs Google propagates?) he can totally track my location at any time, which I suppose gives him some special delight.

I’ve always been a non-smartphone person.  I need a phone to make phone calls, and I like very basic features such as voicemail, speaker phone, some sort of hands-free. . . I’ve never even been a big fan of texting. Or even a camera phone.

But if I’m going to stay with the times, and not become (before age 35) one of those old people that can’t handle all this new technology stuff, I suppose it’s time to move on up.

By next month, my husband expects me to store my life in this thing. To plan out my schedule, all appointments, to-do lists, shopping lists . . . We will see. It’s taken the better part of the week just to get to Level 4 of Angry Birds Rio, and that’s with starting over after the “smart” phone crashed and lost all my scores up through Level 3.  (Yes, this is all true, but before my closer friends–or my moms–start worrying about my priorities, just remember: there is often more to the story than meets the eye.)

Wow. A minivan. A “big girl” car seat. My first smartphone. And Angry Birds!–It’s been a monumental week!

So there.

I blogged about something monumental!

My husband recently told me that, if he were one of my blog’s readers, he would be frustrated and probably quit reading. (“If he were one of my readers. . .”)

Then he pointed out that I have yet to update my blog to announce the ultrasound results from March 4–whether Baby #4 is a boy or a girl.

I struggle with monumental posts.

You may (or may not) have noticed:

• Micah’s birth story ended as I’m making phone calls while prepping for an emergency c-section. I still can’t craft a post that can capture the feelings I had as a mother when my baby, born almost 2 months early, lets out the faintest cry at birth, after we were told not to be surprised if he made no sounds at all, due to the immaturity of his lungs. Or the incredulous excitment when they announced his weight–4 lbs., 12 ozs.! We would have been ecstatic with 3-1/2 lbs.
• Carissa’s birth story ended on my due date at 8 centimeters when my water broke, and I told the doctor that I didn’t think I could wait much longer to start pushing.
• I also regularly fail to record Christmas or birthday posts.

Basically, anything consequential just didn’t happen (on this blog).

I’m a perfectionist, and I feel inadequate in capturing the monumental or the once in a lifetime.

The mundane, however. That’s another story! I am a master of the mundane (ha ha!). In fact, this post is another example of my writing a post about . . . nothing.

This is why I have yet to post whether the baby is a boy or a girl.

And yet I’m already planning my post about giving away Mara and Carissa’s baby clothes. . .

I might have just let the secret slip.