Contemplating This, My Last Pregnancy

I am 29 weeks pregnant with our third child.  She's the final baby.  Of that, I am sure.  It's long been my intuition that I'd have three children, and I am blessed that the Universe has seen to gift us with three.  I suppose there could be an "accident," but it's pretty unlikely.  I'm 38 now, it took us a year and a half to get pregnant this time, I practice extended nursing and didn't get my period back after baby two for 2.5 years post partum, and women in my family go into menopause in their early 40s.  So long story short, this is it.

The past eight years of my life has revolved, in great part, around getting pregnant, being pregnant, giving birth, and anticipating getting pregnant again.  So it seems very, very momentous to be done with having children.

When my beloved step-father died when I was in my early 20s, I learned just how important it is to appreciate our loved ones - and the precious experiences they give us - while they are in our lives.  As a result, I likely spend more time than most reflecting on and being grateful for the people in my life.  Every day I stop and look at my children, my husband, freezing them like photographs in my mind, wanting to relish them in this moment.  For I know that life with them is too short. 

It is with that perspective that I am contemplating, appreciating, this last pregnancy.   I lay in bed at night, rubbing my baby belly, saying to myself  "This is the last 11 weeks of my entire lifetime that I am going to have a baby inside me."  11 weeks more being pregnant.  Ever.  I am trying to drill it into my brain.  I am trying GET the hugeness of this being the end - so that I don't miss it when it's gone.

So when I look at my baby belly in the mirror, I laugh and smile with joy.
When little Juliette kicks and moves and rumbles around inside me, I try to remember in vivid detail how amazing it feels.
I rub my belly as if I'm already holding her in my arms... loving her within me.

Conscious appreciation of life - it's the next best thing to time standing still.


The photo at the top, taken by my brother Paul Emerson, is of me pregnant with my first child, Brianna, at about 30 weeks pregnant.