Kate’s room has a door back up! Yay! We took it down to paint all the trim and we just today got all the doors painted and back up – which was, of course, not without its frustrations. Now that there’s an actual door we can start setting up her furniture and toys – we didn’t want to until the door was up because the cats think all her things are awesome. (I even found a cat inside her dresser one day… that rather startled me when I opened the drawer.)

I admit it: I keep opening her dresser and taking out some clothes, opening them up, then re-folding them and putting them back. It’s kind of silly and is certainly unnecessary, but oh, oh, how I love those clothes… just the mere fact that they are there, in a dresser in my baby’s room, waiting for her to arrive. I stand in her room and look around and think, holy cow, this is real. We could actually be bringing home a baby. I am still not really wrapping my brain around that. I’m not certain it’s even possible.

I am excited. Tempered excitement, yes. But excited nonetheless.

Kate is doing well in there. She has some pretty consistent patterns and she’s still really active every day. I still have my moments, when she is quiet – when I realize she’s been quiet. I keep my mouth shut and my mind turned off and just start poking around my belly and jiggling her a little until I get a kick. I feel a little bad for doing it, at least I do after she kicks me, but… some times I just need it.

Tomorrow is my very first NST (non-stress test) and I’m expecting it to be boring and uneventful. It’s at 11am, which could go either way – she could be sleeping, or she could be very awake.

I can’t believe I’m at 34 weeks. This morning I happened to glance up at Devin’s shelf and said, “Oh!!” as I ran over. I picked up the picture of me pregnant with Devin, my favorite picture I have of the entire pregnancy, and showed it to Den. “This! This is from 34 weeks!” I later looked up all my belly pics to confirm, and yep it was from 34 weeks. Holy shit! All pregnancy I’ve been staring at that picture, reminiscing about when I was REALLY pregnant with a big belly and really looking forward to getting there again… and suddenly here I am.

Only 6 weeks left to go; it really feels like I’m hitting the home stretch… especially with these contractions. Which have really calmed down, at least. I am still getting them here and there but they aren’t coming regularly like they were. And since I know now it’s braxton-hicks I’ve decided to just ignore them unless they get stronger. Right now they still feel like just a tingle… and me having to pee really bad. If this is how it’s going to be for the last 6 weeks, then fine. I’m just going to go on about my day and ignore them. When I really stopped to think about them and the possibility of going into labor it didn’t seem quite so scary. I mean, yeah, it’s early and I’m nervous about it, but the baby is doing great and even a 34 weeker is not a very scary thing. She’d be alive and here. So if I do end up in labor I’ll deal with it fine – though I really don’t think I will anytime soon.

Hopefully sometime this week Den will paint the trim in the bedroom and then we will set up the cosleeper; I’m not going to push it up to the bed yet, but it’ll be in the room and ready to go. The carseat is in my car, though it’s not actually installed yet – I’m going to make an appointment to have that done. I need to wash all her clothes, and then prep all the diapers. Very soon I will pack my hospital bag. We’re not quite ready yet, but give us just a few weeks.