A big brother in waiting

I purchased this maternity top months ago when my belly first started making it uncomfortable to fit into my regular clothes. Then I forgot I had it in my cupboard! Re-found it, and discovered that it fits quite well now... in fact if that belly gets too much bigger it may not fit at all! lol

We're now 29wks, and fast approaching the '30s'. I've been continuing to monitor my blood pressure at home, and it is consistently in the normal range - which is awesome. Means my body is handling this pregnancy better then it did with my son 3yrs ago. I have the OB check up next week, so we'll get the blood test and glucose challenge test results then.

Baby has been reasonably active again over the last few days after his little quieter period. I am wondering though if he's flipped back into breach position though. I am pretty hopeless at being able to tell what bits are what though - I just know I can feel something very solid in my belly that pushes back when I press on him! I'm getting a lot of quite painful jabs and knocks to my pelvis/bladder again though, so I'm assuming that means he's got his feet down there and I think it might be his head just near my belly button that I can feel as the 'hardness'. (Hubby tells me I shouldn't poke the baby there because I might poke him in the eye! I reply that there is a decent layer of fat, muscle, uterus and fluid between my hands and the baby, and that I think he'll be fine - they're more forceful when they do a bloody ultrasound!!)

It's crazy to look at this little diagram and see how far baby has come. From those first few weeks following the embyro transfer when he was too tiny to even detect on a scan... to now being a full formed, just slightly too small human being. There's a part of me that wants to will the next 10weeks away so that I can hand the baby over to his parents and have my body back. But then there's a part of me that knows how magical this last stage of pregnancy is, and how soon it will be over, and doesn't want the time to pass by too quickly.

I went into this surrogacy journey wanting to help a family out, but also wanting to experience a pregnancy again - and this baby has not disappointed. There's just so many questions I want answered now like any expectant woman would... how long is labour going to be? What will the baby look like? How big will he be? When will I go into labour? And of course the questions more specific to this situation... what will the days and weeks following delivery be like for me? Will I get that hormonal surge that all the baby books talk about and become a weeping mess!? Will I be in pain for a long time after birth without the distraction of a new baby to care for? Will I recover more quickly not having to get up for night feeds? Will I feel weird catching up with the babies family those first few times after we leave the hospital? Or will it feel like the most natural thing?

I am genuinely curious as to how all of these situations will play out, and what my reactions will be.

We caught up with IM, her mum and her little boy during the week (- Babies mum, grandma and big brother). My mum, little sister and grandma were able to meet them as well - which I think was a very important step. It upgrades the 'concept' of a family for the baby in my tummy to actual people. We had a lovely lunch at the same place we'd met for our very first meeting back at the very start of this surrogacy process. It was quite poetic to reflect on all that had happened/changed over the year, and how much IM's little boy had grown and matured.

He sat opposite me at lunch and kept looking over at me and saying 'baby'. He made it quite clear that even though he's only just turned 2yrs old, he knows what's going on, and that the big bump under my shirt contained a baby for him. I was genuinely surprised by how well he grasped the concept and got a bit teary while holding him and talking about his little brother coming (but had to contain myself as photos were being taken!)

It blows my mind to think about how much his little world is going to chance in just a few short weeks. He'll never remember a time when it was just him. It'll always be him and his little brother. Out to conquer the world!