Stream of consciousness...

25wk6d...we are very close to midnight, so I'm calling it that. :)

I have so much swirling and whirling around my brain tonight...so much, that I just need to let it out.

The house is quiet, very quiet, and Baby Lewis and I are relaxing on the couch. Between 9:30-10:30, it's this little one's awake time, and boy did I ever cherish the little gymnastics routine that went on tonight.

In the past 24 hours or so, I haven't felt a whole lot of movement...really, nothing. It was quite unnerving and I found myself taking back all of the comments I've made to myself over the last few weeks about wishing this little one would lay off my cervix and kick elsewhere. Trust me, today I would have gladly taken a swift kick ANYWHERE, just to know s/he was okay. I poked, I prodded, I drank juice, I ate sweets, I laid flat, I laid on my side.

But nothing.

Finally at dinner I had two little taps and breathed a sigh of relief, but I still wasn't satisified. I wanted that big wallop and thankfully, it came around 10:00 tonight.

Exhale.

As I put the girls to bed tonight, I found myself kissing their little faces and thinking, "How can it ever be better than this?" In my eyes, they are perfection...every square inch of their little bodies. Even with the few lasting effects of their prematurity...the ones that will always be...they are perfect.

Despite being born at 27 weeks...a gestation we are quickly approaching with this one still tucked safely inside, they are perfect.

They survived.

They are thriving.

I'm not sure what I will do if/when 27wk2d finds us still pregnant. I'm sure I will wake up giddy with excitement and exhale a big sigh of relief, yet again. And if we are blessed enough to make it to 28 weeks, who knows what kind of party we'll be having!

In some moments, like now, it all seems so attainable. Yet in others...like the last 24 hours...I wonder if this is it. It's such a mental battle.

Of course, everyone has their guesses as to when this baby will come. Many friends and family are saying 32-33 weeks. My peri is thinking all the way. My OB is a little more conservative and just keeps telling me to make it to 28 weeks (as if I have any say in that). My husband says 30 weeks and when I stop worrying about making it to that point, my body will just let go.

Um, thanks honey for the encouragement.

I wish I could say I have my own guesstimate, but I don't. Really, I don't. I am living day to day and praying constantly that we make it to the next. I know all too well from my own experience and that of close friends and even complete strangers in blogworld, that things can be more than fine one minute and take a dramatic turn the next.

And really because of that very fact, I cannot think very far ahead. People are asking when I will start getting everything ready...pulling down tubs, washing everything, taking inventory. I start thinking about what we need in terms of "stuff" and I just can't do it yet. I even have a website for this baby, similar to the one that girls had for my pregnancy with them and their first two years of life, but it remains unfinished and barely set up. In many ways, I don't think I will be ready to think about anything until we hit 27wk2d...28 weeks even. Of course, I'm sure once we do hit that mark (God willing), I will be a crazed maniac trying to pull it all together in the final hours. But that's just how it's going to have to be.

11 more sleeps til 27wk2d...