full term

Two days ago, Hosanna officially became "full term" - 37 weeks - the date at which the baby is fully developed and can be born at any time. For us, this big milestone means we can officially have the baby at the birth center and not go to the hospital, which is hugely important to us.

We passed this date over the weekend, and for the entire weekend we were both really stressed - we really felt the magnitude of this event deep down within us. We barely slept both nights, we felt a sense of urgency about completing our batch of errands, and we bickered a bit as we tried to figure out what we were feeling. It wasn't until the day came and went that we fully appreciated what had been going on.

We set up the crib that my sister gave us. Whoa. There's nothing quite like a crib to really cement in your mind that a baby is coming. The room looks really different now. Where once we had all of our keyboards and musical gear, now we have a changing table, crib, and (soon) a glider for Hosanna to rock the baby in. The room looks mostly ready. You can really picture a cute little baby in there. We've also been doing other projects like hanging more curtains, painting our room, finishing the downstairs bathroom, and other little things we've been putting off.

Since we moved so much stuff down into the garage, a bunch of other stuff had to go... so we had a garage sale. And we were so stressed out the whole time, just praying that people would come and take this stuff. Especially the couch. Nobody wanted the couch all day and we were going crazy. Who will take the couch? No one. At the end of the day we left it out on the street with a big sign that said FREE. It finally went the next day just as the sun fell, at the exact moment when we had given up and decided to bring it back into the garage.

You would not believe how big Hosie is. None of us can believe it. But she looks beautiful. She's in really good shape because she has been walking two or three times a day, seven days a week. She's probably walked 3-5 miles a day every day. From the back, you can barely tell she is pregnant. But then she turns around and you gotta jump out of the way of that oncoming belly. It takes up another zip code.

Plus, over the past week, we've watched her belly slowly drop down as the baby shifts down lower. It's in a good position, our midwife assures us, and everything is looking good.

Earlier today Hosanna thought that her water had broken, so she called me, then the midwife. The midwife had her come in to the birth center to take a look. False alarm. She had to reassure Hosanna that when the water breaks, there's a much bigger amount of water that comes out. But she did say that she would be surprised if the baby waits all the way until our due date (9/19). She's pretty sure it will be about a week early. That would give us about two weeks. Holy crap. That's not a lot of time.

I have been riding a crazy rollercoaster the past month. Sometimes I'm ok, other times I'm way stressed out and scared like a little kid. I've been trying to support Hosanna in every way that I can, but sometimes it is all too much and I just want to run and hide away for a little while. It's hard to fight that urge. But I'm trying my hardest.

One piece of advice we've really taken to heart is to go out on the town and enjoy ourselves, go on some dates. We've gone out to dinner a few times. We went to see Batman Begins on IMAX, which was really fun. And we went to go see Robert Walter play at Harlow's, a swanky club in downtown Sacramento. Hosanna even got to go out hiking and swimming at her favorite spot on the Yuba River up near Nevada City with her brother, his girlfriend, and some of their friends. This is a trend we will try to keep up over the next couple weeks, although it looks as though our hiking days are probably over for a little while.

All in all, this month has been a crazy ride... and I know we've barely even begun. It's hard sometimes to just stop and take a deep breath and try to slow everything down.