Dear Moe (35 Weeks)

Hiya, sweetie. One more week and we'll be 9 months along. Another five weeks until you're full term. We saw you yesterday in an ultrasound, and you're looking great. You're in the 50th percentile for size, which is perfect, and weigh about 5 pounds and change. And we confirmed that you are indeed head down, and hopefully you'll stay that way. No backflips for you, ok? :)

I have seven and a half days of work left, not that I'm counting. I'm really looking forward to my leave. I find I get pretty tired by about 2:00 pm, and my back gets rather achey after sitting in a chair all day.

But I have managed to keep puttering around in the evenings, for the most part - last night I washed a bunch more teeny tiny clothes. I still have about three more loads to go! Your nursery is coming along nicely (although our spare room is now filling up with stuff). I set up your baby monitor, and we have a CD player for you so you can listen to music. Sometimes, when I'm getting ready for work in the morning, I'll just slip into your room for a moment and look around in awe.

We're taking the steps required to bank your cord blood when you are born. I hope you'll never need it, but it gives us some peace of mind to know that if you do, it's there.

I think this week I'll start drinking raspberry leaf tea. (They say you can start drinking it at 32 weeks, but I thought I'd wait a bit later just to be safe.) I'll bring some to the hospital, too, to drink during labour. It is supposed to ease labour and help get the uterus ready for labour. Hey, whatever makes it easier for you to come and join us on the outside. :)

I'm really excited for this weekend - Becka is going to come over and take some photos of my belly. When you're older, I thought it might be fun for you to see the belly you called home for 40 weeks. Plus, this has just been such a wonderful time in our lives that we'd like to document it properly. You are our dream come true, Moe. We can't wait to meet you.

It was funny, Moe. Yesterday at the doctor's appointment, we were seen by a medical student. After measuring you, checking my blood pressure, and asking various questions, she said, "Well, you guys are pretty boring!"

I think she meant that things were going very routinely. But I laughed and said, "Well, the beginning of this journey was filled with all kinds of interesting, so we're very happy to be boring now." She glanced at our chart and saw that you were conceived by IVF and blushed, "Yeah, I guess boring's good."

You'll never be boring to us, sweetie. But we're very happy that things are going along so well, and we hope that your arrival will be "routine", too. But whatever happens, your arrival could never be boring or "uneventful" - everything about you is so exciting to us!

In the meantime, keep growing (and staying in that 50th percentile, if possible - what a nice, reasonable size!), keep kicking, and keep soaking up our love.