Written in Week 36 of Pregnancy. April 2025.

To be perfectly honest, I have not taken notes over the past few months since we found out this pregnancy was here to stay. At first I was afraid of what might happen. I was slightly scared to be excited for this pregnancy as a way of guarding my heart just in case it came to an early end like the first one. But as time went on and everything seemed smooth, it was absolutely impossible to contain the excitement, especially as we announced the joy to everyone we knew.

Receiving love and excitement from friends and family was the absolute best. It was so perfect in every way, and the unexpected overwhelming joy felt by others truly caught me off guard. There were even moments when a neighbour was so thrilled, they ran into the house to go get us something that their kids had outgrown. I didn’t realize the absolute joy that a pregnancy can bring as people celebrate with you and are instantly willing to help. They say that “it takes a village” and I have always kind of hated that term as being too cliché. But when the neighbour reacted like that, I realized what it can mean and how special it is when people who have had kids know what the challenges are and are willing to help ease the load of anyone coming after them. It’s something I hope to do for others in my life in the same way.

This entire pregnancy has been fantastic and special. Now of course I speak as the person who isn’t actually pregnant. Yes, there has been morning sickness / nausea, heartburn, lack of sleep and so many other things that come along with pregnancy, but neither Andrea or myself are people that focus on the negative aspects of life. Frankly, the symptoms have all been normal pregnancy symptoms, and we consider ourselves so blessed to have not needed to deal with anything too out of the ordinary or distressing. After going through this many years of trying to conceive, an “average” pregnancy is quite a thing to celebrate.

There was a moment when Andrea and I were discussing the semantics of being “4 months pregnant” versus “being in the 4th month of pregnancy”. This discussion was entirely based on timing verbiage, math, and semantics. We were hilariously bantering back and forth for like 10 minutes when I stopped and said “Andrea, can we take a minute and think about what we are discussing? You are 4 months pregnant. How incredible is that?!?!”

I usually do most of my writing during hard times, or when I am trying to work through something. It’s something I use to make sense of my emotions in a safe and thoughtful way. So over these past 8 months or so, I haven’t felt the need to write. In many ways I am grateful for that. We’ve lived and loved each other through everything and finally have reached this part of the journey that we’ve longed for. I think I have done more living in the moment than I ever have before, which I know is soon to continue as we live moment to moment with our new baby.

We’ve had our baby shower and we are well prepared to begin this next step. We have so many people in our lives that are thrilled for us and are so supportive. We’ve had a babymoon trip that was memorable and fun in all the best ways. We have all the “stuff”, much of it given to us by very loving people. We’ve also spent a few weekends completing Infant First Aid/CPR, Prenatal classes, and maternity photos.

As we enter our final few weeks, we are cherishing every moment just as we always have, but the giddiness to meet our baby is undeniable.