Emotional

I am starting to get emotional. OK, so I have been emotional for a while. What I mean is I am starting to get emotional in a different way lately. I am starting to really dread the end of this pregnancy. I don't dread the end of the hip pain, or the indigestion, or the other discomforts of pregnancy. In my last two pregnancies by the time I got to about 25 weeks I was so ready to be done with the pregnancy that I could hardly stand it. This one is different. I can not wait to see Chase and see if he looks like Austin and Brodie. To see the resemblances between him and his daddy and to count all his toes and fingers. I can not wait to nurse him and hold him late at night when it is just the two of us. I even can not wait to see how Austin and Brodie are with the baby. Austin has always been a good big brother and I have no doubt that Brodie will be as well. However, I am starting to feel like this is my last go round with the whole pregnant thing. Some of the folks around us are saying that they believe we will have one more. Maybe we will. We are not ruling it out just yet. With that said, every time I hear Chase's heartbeat or see him on the Ultrasound picture I get a little choked up. I feel that this is my last one. Time has passed me so quickly with Austin and Brodie. And it seems to be already with Chase. I am never going to experience the first movements of a baby again. Chase will be the last baby that I get up and nurse in the middle of the night. The last baby that tickles my side while he nurses. The last one to light up with I walk into a room and reach out for me. I guess with all the excitement of Chase's arrival I am grieving the time that has already past with Austin and Brodie. I am already grieving the time that has yet to pass with Chase. Don't get me wrong. I love watching the boys grow up. I love that I am a soccer mom and get to go to cheer my son on. I love that Brodie has become such a comedian and is getting so independent. I love to watch all of it. The pregnancy is just making me think back on times when they were smaller. The nights in California when I was all alone, no family, no friends. Austin would wake up and I of course would go running. I would lay in the spare bed in his nursery and nurse him until we both fell asleep. He would tickle my side with his fingers while nursing. Times when Brodie was a newborn and would look into my eyes while sitting on my knees. He always had the sly grin he still has. He would sit there for hours and never complain or whimper. He loved to cuddle in the mornings.

Maybe these are the reasons why now when my boys wake up in the middle of the night I still want to rock and love on them. When they cry out I still want to run to them. I suspect I will always have these feelings, but this pregnancy is intensifying them. This is why I am trying to appreciate and cherish every kick to the ribs, every night I can't sleep, even the hip pain. It will all be gone too quickly and in the blink of an eye all three of my boys will be teenagers. Perhaps this post rambled on...I am tempted to go back and read it. But, I am going to post it as is. I want to be able to look back on it in a few months when I am complaining that the baby has not been born yet and remind myself to hold on to the moments that I am having RIGHT NOW.