No It's Not

My pregnancy ticker says that it's go time. Don't be fooled, no one's going anywhere today. Despite having light to moderately hard contractions on and off for weeks, my body has made zero change. I'm still hanging out at 3 cm dilated, 75% effaced, just like I have been for the past month. Bummer. On the plus side, it looks like I'll be around to walk Clayton to the bus for his first day of second grade tomorrow!

33 Weeks

Photo courtesy of Clayton:
For the most part, I feel pretty good. This has been my easiest pregnancy yet (physically). I am uncomfortable, but it's managable most of the time and I still feel pretty active and spry for someone in my condition. I'm still exercising fairly regularly (although the intensity has dropped way off); I ran a 5k about a month ago (and I'm super proud of it). Also, this is my smallest pregnancy. I have gained the least amount of weight so far. I think this is why it's so hard for me to hear people constantly comment on how big I am, how uncomfortable I look, and ask if I'm sure it's not twins. No pregnant lady ever likes to hear that, but especially not one who feels pretty dang good. Although I will admit that some days I do feel like this:

That has to be one of my favorite pregnancy clips ever (from one of the best shows ever). In other pregnancy related news, at my last appointment (a week and a half ago) the baby was measuring two weeks ahead - which is awesome considering, like I said, that this is my smallest pregnancy. If the baby is still measuring two weeks ahead at my next appointment (Friday) they'll do an ultrasound to see if this baby may just show up early!! I've NEVER had a baby show up early so I'm sort of hoping that this will be true - although I seriously doubt it will happen. The boys are excited about the baby, when they remember. I said something the other day about what will happen when the baby comes and Clayton looked at me, very innocently, and said, 'What baby?'. Boys. Josie is a pretty possessive little thing and so I'm slightly worried about how she's going to handle the newcomer (I'm open to suggestions for helping her prepare). She loves all things baby, but not when they involve me holding one over her. Still no name for our little lady, we're still calling her Samphiezzie. I'm not going to tell you what three names we combined to come up with that, but you are welcome to guess. I'm curious what you think they are (no guessing if you already know). Basically, that's it. We are just trying to keep busy and out of trouble this summer. I'm trying to give the kids lots of adventures this summer because the odds are that next summer won't be as fun (I'm not sure how many adventures I'll be up for with four kids). There you have it. 33 weeks down, 7 to go. Ready or not!

**In Pootie-related news, his face is completely back to normal (well, his eyes are super dry and a little red, but no more puffiness). He is almost done with his round of steroids, thank goodness. Those steroids do a number on him, he literally cannot sit still. I don't think there is any activity available that can help him release all of his energy right now, it's a little draining and frustrating, but we're almost done!**

Quatro...

Looks like things are going to be Even Steven around the Smith house. We're all over the moon. Clayton initially cried when he heard the news (he wanted a boy pretty badly), but he's over that now and is just as excited as the rest of us! As far as the rest of the ultrasound went, she's looking perfect. We're not sure what we're going to name her yet so we'll stick with Quatro for a while. Two boys and two girls. We couldn't be happier!

Confession

If you haven't noticed by the ever so subtle ticker, I'm pregnant! I'm pretty ackward when it comes to announcing pregnancies (ask my VT friends, with Josie I never announced it, someone finally just had to ask) so I usually don't. Since I don't get sick or anything it's not hard to avoid the subject. It's not that I don't want to tell people, I just can't ever think of a good way to bring it up without it sounding random or blunt so I avoid it altogether. I thought though, that since this is going to be our LAST baby, I'd actually tell people before we found out the gender. As I said though, I'm ackward at announcing stuff so instead of actually announcing it, I just did the ticker thing and felt that was sufficient. I am learning though, some people (who obviously haven't seen my already enormous belly) aren't sure whether I'm serious or not.

So let me assure you and announce it to everyone: I'm pregnant, it's true. I'm due August 24th. Justin and I were not planning on having a fourth baby so this one came as quite the surprise to both of us (if it makes you feel better I was super ackward announcing the news to him too). It's taken us some time to warm up to the idea of a fourth kid (a.k.a. Quattro), but we are excited now. The boys are super excited - we just told them earlier this week - Clayton wants a brother and Noah wants a sister. We'll find out next month.

So there's the news! Sorry if you thought I was kidding. I have had quite the bump for a while now but was able to hide it with coats and sweaters, but it's not really heavy coat weather anymore so my cover has been blown. The jig is up. Quattro is coming!