“Mommy, how do babies get in Mommies’ tummies?”

The nearing arrival of the next addition to our family has brought a lot of questions as well as a lot of interest in my ever growing and moving belly. Tonight came the question above. This is one I should have been prepared to answer, but was not. Luckily, Craig jumped in with a simple explanation that God decided mommy was ready to have a baby in her tummy. Evie was satisfied with that answer as she “was thinking that” herself. Of course then she asked how God put the baby my tummy. Craig’s answered something about divine intervention and that seemed to end the questions.

Max is fascinated with my belly and can sit with his hand on my tummy for long periods of time every day. I asked him tonight if he was excited to meet his new brother or sister. He got excited and asked if the baby was coming out. I told him not yet and that we’ll have to wait a while longer. I think he may be starting to understand more about what is to happen in this house when the baby arrives. Our new nephew was here this weekend and we had the baby swing and bouncer out for baby Zack to use. Max loved tickling Zack’s feet while he was in the swing. I think it was a good practice run for Max to see a baby in some of the baby stuff that’s starting to appear around the house.

Three years ago exactly I was in the early stages of labor with my sweet little boy. Max arrived at 9:30 am on Sept 1st 2005. Tomorrow we will celebrate his birthday with just the four of us, some pizza, and some presents. Remembering his arrival and thinking about the coming arrival reminds me of a Q&A session with Evie about a year ago. We were looking at some pictures of me when I was pregnant with Max and Evie asked, “How do babies get out of your tummy?” After contemplating telling her either something about a stork or a simple version of the truth the conversation went as follows:
Me: “Mommy’s have a special hole that babies come out of.”
Evie “Is it the belly button?”
Me: “No.”
Evie: “Where is it?”
Me: “Down by mommy’s pee-pee.”
Evie: “Oh. (pause) How do babies get down there?”
Me: “Well, they go through a tunnel to get down there.”
Evie: “Do they crawl through the tunnel?”
Me: “Well no. I guess it’s sort of more like a slide.”
Evie: “Did Max push me down the slide?”
Me: (Laughing almost too hard to answer at this point) “No, Max wasn’t in mommy’s tummy yet.”
Evie: “Oh. Did I go ‘whee’ when I went down the slide?”
At this point I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughter and the conversation ended since I just couldn’t answer any more. It remains one of my very favorite moments with my beautiful, smart, and curious little girl.

Holding baby Zack made me all the more anxious for the arrival of our 3rd addition. Here is a quick update regarding version 3.0 (the nickname given to this mystery baby by his/her godfather)… V3.0 was breech at my Dr. appt this past Wednesday. Friday morning we arrived for a scheduled visit at the hospital so my doctor could perform what’s called an External Cephalic Version or ECV. Basically, while under monitoring, an IV, and some pain meds my doctor used her hands to gently (mostly) massage/guide this baby into a head down position. The whole flipping portion of the process only took about a minute and I was only slightly uncomfortable for a portion of that. V3.0 appears to have remained head down as far as I can tell. We will be able to confirm that at my appt this week. Keep your fingers crossed!