Preparing

At this time last year, the thought of feeling a miniature human being moving around inside me seemed creepy and weird. In fact, the whole concept of growing a person seemed creepy and weird. But the coolest thing about pregnancy, in my opinion, is how my instinct has just taken over and all these creepy weird things happening to my body just feel normal.

At 36 weeks, our little boy is as active as ever. He's run out of room to kick, but I can feel him squirming, rolling and hiccuping on an hourly basis. And I don't know if there is any better feeling than the feeling of your baby moving inside you. It's almost as if it releases endorphins or something; no matter how anxious, upset or stressed I am, the feeling of a little foot jabbing me in the belly seems to instantly calm me down. It's just amazing, and I know I'm going to miss this feeling when Baby T is on the outside.

Over the past week or so, I've started feeling quite a few contractions. They're not painful at all -- my stomach tightens up for about 30 seconds and sometimes I have to change positions to catch my breath. They almost always happen at night, when I'm tired, and usually only about once or twice per hour. Oddly enough, those don't freak me out, either. I used to worry that I'd panic at the first sign of a contraction and want to rush to the hospital, but it's quite the opposite. The contractions are actually strangely comforting to me because I know they're preparing my body for labor, and my instinct tells me that it's definitely not time yet. (I hope this bodes well for me keeping my cool during the actual labor process.)

So, I guess, with that, I wait -- and hope that my crazy pregnant-lady instincts will help get me through the next few weeks!