Big News! and a belly shot!

Well... Easton constantly tells the baby he wants him to come out now and he's so excited to play with him and I guess the little guy has decided to grant him his wish! My contractions have been getting more constant and more painful and this week I've had 10+ every hour. We went to the doctor today and I told Jonathan I was going to be really surprised if my cervix hadn't changed at all in the past two weeks with all this action. So I wasn't too surprised when the tech did the ultrasound and there was very little cervix left and what was left was wide open all the way through. Basically there's about a centimeter of cervix left but it's dilated and open through so there's essentially nothing holding him in there. The doctor didn't want to check to see if I was dilated any more on the outside (I've been dilated 2-3 since 26 wks) because he didn't want to irritate it at all and said it didn't really matter because he'll be coming anytime now anyway. He told me not even to worry about scheduling another appointment because I won't make it and he had me get another steroid shot since he said there probably won't be time to do them once I get to the hospital. So for now I am moving as little as possible and hoping it will help him stay in at least a little longer. Obviously we want him to stay in as long as he can, but he does have a lot of good things going for him. Tomorrow I'll be 32 weeks, at which point his risk of long-term brain damage isn't any greater than it would be for a full-term baby. He's also almost 4 lbs so he's bigger already than Caden was and over a week older. I've gotten the steroid shots which help a lot so hopefully he won't have to be on oxygen for too long. My biggest worries with preemie babies are brain bleeds, picc lines, and feeding tubes since all can cause serious problems. He's past the brain bleed worry, hopefully past the picc lines, and will probably have feeding tubes but hopefully not for too long. They make me nervous that they'll be put in wrong and he'll end up aspirating fluid, so the less time he has them the better! We couldn't hold Caden for the first week until his PICC line came out because of the risk of it snapping and traveling up his artery to his heart, so hopefully this little man is big enough to get his nutrition by mouth instead of needing that IV. But going from wondering if he'll survive at 23 weeks to having just these few worries at 32 weeks is amazing and we're so grateful for this blessing!
Anyway, this is very long, but it could be my last post before we meet our little boy! The NICU stay is never fun and hopefully it will be as short as possible, but I will definitely welcome the relief from these darn contractions and a chance to get some sleep. It's pretty tough to sleep when your uterus is having a party all night and lately I'm looking like a zombie all the time now so the sleep I get before he comes home from the NICU is going to be heaven! I'm still on all my meds and while they are no longer lowering the number of contractions, they do lessen the intensity for a little while so that's been giving me a bit of relief.  We'll see how long we have till we meet the little man! We're still crossing our fingers he stays in a bit longer and keeps surprising everyone, but at this point we are very happy with what we get! In fact, Jonathan and I both have a really good feeling that everything is going to be fine and we're just really happy and excited to meet him so we'll see how much longer we have to wait!

Here are my only belly pics. I'm never very good at taking these and I actually took two this time but had never posted them, so here they are!
This first one is a great picture huh? I was 25 1/2 weeks and I took this in the morning before my dr appointment (since that's the only time I'm dressed :) ). I realized what a terrible pic it was so I was going to have my mom take one after I got home from the appt but I ended up having to go straight to the hospital from the dr office, so this is what we've got :)

 This pic was also before an appt, the day after I hit 31 wks. And holy cow my face is looking nice and chubby :) This pregnancy was weird. Instead of a nice, cute, round baby bump I just got chubby all around my middle and looked pretty spongebob squarepantsish, so I was pretty happy when my belly started poking out to lessen the "I just ate too many cheeseburgers and I'm really bloated" look.

Neither are great pics, but I don't know that I'll be taking another one so this is what we've got! I had all these visions of cute maternity pics I would take but this will have to do. I've already gained 25 lbs which is what you're supposed to gain the entire pregnancy and 9 weeks of bedrest leaves you with absolutely NO muscle tone at all so this is going to be a lot of fun getting back in shape :)  Oh well, I'm just happy to be able to go on walks and actually know what's in my fridge! And grocery shopping! And cleaning! Yay! :)