What's on your mind?

So.. as we all draw nearer to the birth of our babies, what's on your mind?

Are you excited, nervous, anxious?

What, when you think about he/she coming, pops in your mind?

I'm excited and nervous. I'm MORE nervous right now about the thought of labor. I HATE pain, I'm just a big wuss and I cry really easily, so the thought of pushing something huge through a small hole is not the best thought I've ever entertained. I'm also a little concerned about where she's going to sleep (if she sleeps). Like I've mentioned, I've always been super concerned about DH's sleep. Not that he's ever made me feel like that, it's just my nature. If I have a cold or something, I sleep on the couch. When I was super sick every 15 mins with m/s, I was on the couch for weeks. We had originally thought about putting the baby's crib in the room with us. But everything I read from other moms-to-be say they're getting a bassinet. THEN my brother moved out, so baby can actually have a bedroom - so I want to put her in there. Plus that'd help DH be able to sleep. He doesn't seem concerned about it at all, he's all like... if I don't sleep I don't sleep. *eyeroll* He's been working 60 hours a week with an hour drive there and an hour drive back (when it snowed Friday it took him SEVEN HOURS to get home!).. I highly doubt he's gonna wanna give up his sleep. Plus, I'll be off so I feel like I should keep care of things.

That's horrible. Baby's not even here yet and I'm boycotting Tim helping me at all. haha

I have the same concerns as you. Birth is still a big unknown to me and I feel under prepared...my birth classes will start in a couple of weeks so I hope that helps.

Im a little unsure about the sleeping situation myself. I think we will use a pack n play as a bassinet and then transition him to his crib once he reaches the weight limit. We will see how that goes and go from there.

Since Im moving this weekend, I've become really worried about baby proofing right now. My new place has tons of low windows and Im on the 2nd floor. So Im looking at how to stratgically place my furniture to avoid falls against those windows.

Oh I am pissed because the landlord decided to repaint the whole duplex and I thought they'd repaint it with the original colors we saw when we signed the lease. But no, the whole place is lavender. I think they picked out a light grey, but to us its more purple. Its terrible. So we might repaint the babys room.

Im also concerned about work about people taking over my projects, about what my position will be like when I get back, about how all these deadlines will magically get done without me. I need to learn to let go. Its not my name on the door and I need to take a backseat so they can realize they need to hire someone to help and temporarily replace me.

Elizabeth - my boss man asked me yesterday when I'm going out. *huge eyeroll* I was like, I'm due in ten weeks. He said..oh! Um..okay. I'm the ONLY person that does my job in the store. I did get a backup trained last year ONLY because I was out for almost two weeks when I had the ectopic pregnancy. She's still there, but I've heard really bad things about when she works. My boss doesn't want her to work while I'm gone because he's heard the same things. To break it down, I have vendors come through the back door. They bring in beer/wine, soda, bread, chips, various grocery items. I also get greeting cards, makeup, etcetc. I receive in about half the store. The vendors have to stop with me, and I check their order with a "gun" to make sure what they SAY they're bringing in - they're actually bringing in. She, apparently, doesn't use the gun. Whatever the vendor says they're bringing, she just keys in the computer and accepts that they have everything. Which, most of the time, they do. But sometimes they don't. And sometimes it's broken and she doesn't even look. There's been multiple items missing off of an order and she paid for them because she's not checking. So anyway, my boss doesn't want her working, but it takes two weeks to train someone on my job. He kept telling me we were going to train someone, but since I go into work at 4 in the morning NOONE wants to do it! So, he's kind of stuck with her when I go out. No telling what's going to happen. It's not hard to "train" someone, but it's hard for people to understand all the paperwork going on. So I'm worried about going back. Yes, she will do the paperwork, but I'm always back tracking and fixing her mistakes.

But you're right. It's not my name on the door and I have to learn to let it go.

I wonder how many times they're going to call...

Haha, last night I was more worried about how I'm going to keep walking so much for the rest of the pregnancy. I have to walk about an hour total every day to help keep my blood sugar under control. Before, it wasn't really an issue because I was trying to stay active anyway, but yesterday I just felt so big and heavy after my walk I was seriously questioning how I was going to keep doing it every day for the next 8-10 weeks. I'm feeling less hopeless about that this morning. I'll be leaving for my morning walk as soon as I finish my coffee (decaf, of course ;).)

I'm not super worried about labor, TBH. My last labor kind of sucked, but I think I understand where things went wrong last time, and so I'm trying to avoid that this time. Plus, no matter how much it sucked, what I learned from it is that I can survive it and it passes, and the part that was really killing me (the uterine contractions) goes away like as soon as you start pushing. Seriously, I LOOOOVED pushing because it was finally a relief from all of the pressure of the contractions. The actual "giant thing coming out of a tiny hole" was, for me, waaaay less painful than the contractions leading up to it (I was on pitocin, so these were some monster contractions.) So that's what I keep focusing on when I feel tempted to worry about labor is that I know I can make it through to the part where you push and maybe it will even be easier if I don't mess up my body's natural progression by getting an epi that stalls out my labor and getting put on pitocin, and that pushing won't be so bad.

I'm not so worried about sleeping either. We will probably start this baby in his crib in his room. With T, I tried to keep him in his bassinette in our room the first night, and none of us slept a wink. At like 6 am the next morning, I finally broke down and followed my MIL's suggestion that we'd all sleep better if he was in his room (she had told me a story where she had literally the exact same experience with my DH on his first night home from the hospital.) He slept muuuuuch better in his own room (maybe it's hard for even a baby to sleep with a nervous giant hovering over him and reacting to his every snuffle) and so did I. So we're skipping straight to the crib with this one, although it will be my luck that this baby is the opposite. LOL

More than anything, I'm just nervous that having two kids is going to be way harder than having one. Luckily, being almost 5, T is a lot more self sufficient than he used to be, so I'm hoping that he will continue to be (relatively) low maintenance. I say "low maintenance" and he's really not, but he's much lower maintenance than an infant anyway. I think that as long as he keeps on at the same level he's at now, it will be fine. If he freaks out about the new baby and starts demanding "baby" treatment, it's going to be much harder.

I just posted about our hopsital tour in a seperate post before I read this but I think it could have easily gone here. I'm SUPER excited and now ready to meet this baby... still terrified about the labor and childbirth part but ready just the same.

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Originally Posted by eliann

Im also concerned about work about people taking over my projects, about what my position will be like when I get back, about how all these deadlines will magically get done without me. I need to learn to let go. Its not my name on the door and I need to take a backseat so they can realize they need to hire someone to help and temporarily replace me.

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This is a HUGE concern of mine!! I take ONE day off and all hell breaks loose :( They aren't detail oriented and don't dive into the level of work that I do to get a job done right.. When I was off for 2 weeks because I got married, I was dealing with residual issued for 3 MONTHS afterwards... I'm QUITE nervous about taking 3 MONTHS off.

What I refuse to do is be "on call" for them if they need help.. either you get a schedule worked out for me to be available or you leave me alone COMPLETELY. I'm head of Quality and he's wanting our only HR rep to do my job.. she's begged and pleaded with him (the boss) to hire someone because she it straight up telling him she can't do it. But he refuses..

This is going to get VERY messy :(

With each day that passes, I have a greater and greater feeling that Austin will be here in April.. so I'm lurking more here (not that I didn't already :lol:

I'm pretty much a roll with it kind of girl.. and with this little man, that hasn't changed. I suppose that I'll be as ready as I'm going to be with what time and resources I have.

We have diapers (see the diaper thread :lol: ) and a car seat to bring him home as well as a couple bottles of formula in the event that I can't BF at first.. with that in mind, everything else, DH could go get.. but we already have clothes and body wash and towels etc.

I'm not terribly concerned about the things on my registry since we could go without them and improvise if we didn't have them and he came..

So.. to answer the OP question, other than work which I can't control their inability to be ready, I'm feeling very at peace right now. Ready for baby.. ready for labor.. ready for a new chapter in my life to begin. :)

I am not that anxious about too much right now except going early because I am a csection it just always scares me to be more of an emergency. Also I want to be done basketball season and not leaving things up in the air.

I am super excited that this will complete our family and all the things we want to do from here like Disney World and stuff. The early baby stage was not the most fun for me with my first because I was bored but I think it will be different this time since I will do more to keep the 3 yr old busy.

As for work, I am lucky this time to have a retiree that left two years ago cover my time out. Last time they hired a nut job who had my classes crazy but I was out through the end of school year so it did not matter as much. This time I have to go back for 3 weeks so I am glad it is someone competent. Also, I technically do not have to leave any sub plans but there is a big high stakes test in June and the scores are mine so I leave EVERYTHING and that is stressing me a little to get it all done which I have been working on.

As for sleep we are probably using a cosleeper for a couple weeks and then she will go in a crib in her room. We did it with my daughter and she slept through the night so much faster and it really was best for us all

Oddly enough, I am not really worried or scared about delivery even though its my first time dealing with it. I'm going to try natural, but it's its too much, I'll just get pain meds. I guess that's just gonna go how it goes. What does concern me is all of the rest of the unknows. Like it's driving me crazy to have NO idea when she's coming. How am I supposed to plan for that!?!?!?! lol. My MIL wants to be here (she needs to book plane tickets) and DS's spring break is right before my due date and I need to figure out when I'm taking off work!!! All of that's totally out of my control and it drives me crazy. DS was a planned c-section and while I do NOT want another one, it was sooo nice to have a defininite date.

As for her arriving, I am just excited. I feel like she's already part of my family and I'm just waiting for her to get here. It's such a change from how I felt when pregnant with DS.

I was somewhat nervous about labor and delivery with my first, just because I didn't know for sure if my body could do it. I mean, I assumed everything would work the way it was supposed to, but I would lie awake at 3am thinking "can I really fit a baby out that little opening"? Now that I've been through it, I am actually excited about the labor and delivery part-I did it without pain meds last time and I am hoping to avoid medication for pre-e this time as I was dumping protein when I arrived at the hospital in labor last time. So I guess I worry about having pre-e again or some other unforeseen complication that will necessitate more medical interventions and lesson the "naturalness" of my birth . I am also scared of tearing again, I had a 3rd degree tear with DD and ended up having to get an epidural for the repairs after making it through labor and delivery without it, which was annoying. Plus I think recovering from the tear was worse than having the baby, TMI but bowel movements were kind of worse than the baby crowning for a week or so.

I don't worry too much about sleeping, I guess because I learned with DD that whatever you plan for in that regard is going to really be up to how your baby actually is. We had a pack n play next to our bed that I planned to use but DD ended up sleeping in bed with us for the first 8 months as she would NOT sleep by herself for anything and I was not comfortable with letting her cry until at least a year old-it was the only way I could get any sleep and I ended up really enjoying it (not that I am not glad to have my bed back to myself and kind of not looking forward to being permanently attached to a baby again every minute I am home for the next however many months if this one is the same way, but it does go by fast and I miss it when its over).

I am with those who worry about work, I have a lot of responsibilities and I am going to be gone during the 12 busiest weeks of the whole year when a lot of overtime is necessary to get the work done, so I am nervous about the coverage-we still don't have someone lined up although a posting is supposed to go up soon and I did have one person who seems fairly qualified send me a resume. I am sure I will be on my email a lot during my leave-that's going to be fun with a toddler who gets into everything when she knows mommy is distracted.

The other thing I worry about is when I go back to work, if I will have to miss lots of work between two kids. I already missed part of the day 3 days in a row plus another whole day with my DD due to illness since we came back from Christmas break. We don't really have anyone available here to watch sick kids and DH is in school right now and also teaching both two hours away from home so he really can't afford to miss his classes plus logistically he's not around a lot of the time, so it falls on me to miss work when DD is ill. I stress about what will happen if they are sick at a time when I absolutely HAVE to be at work and how it will affect DH if he misses important classes or his teaching assignments because I can't miss work that day.