Sara: Most of the time, I feel like a broken record. “Is baby here yet?” is a common question via email and Facebook. “Nope, not yet,” I respond. Now that I am over 41 weeks, it’s hard to wait for Baby. I had set myself up because I knew I needed to be ready for an early birth with my job responsibilities. Now, we wait. I’m not sure if I’m more excited to finally meet our Baby or if I’m more excited to finally not be pregnant anymore.

Justin was oh-so-helpful the other morning as well. He reminded me, “Remember when we first got pregnant and I said we were going to have an August baby?” Thanks, dear, for telling a 41 week pregnant woman “I told you so.”

Waiting is very difficult, but it’s already taught Justin and me a few things. This weekend, I was sure I was going to have the baby on Saturday, as I felt a few contractions Friday evening. I went to bed to get a good night’s sleep before labor. I was proud of myself for sleeping through the contractions as recommended in one of our birthing books. However, the next morning, the contractions were neither regular nor long enough to be “real” labor.

Because of this, I was pretty upset all weekend. I had felt like it was time for our baby to be born, but Baby obviously had other ideas. Regardless of how hard he tried, Justin couldn’t comfort this emotional, pregnant woman. Even Mass resulted in many tears, as I had thought we would have had the baby by then. So we both felt “disconnected” from each other most of the weekend.

Finally, Sunday night, Justin suggested going out to dinner. It was great to just have some time the two of us, and not be distracted by anything else. Later, we discussed how important it was for us to just have some time together, and decided it would be very important to have “date night” once Baby is born.

Justin: I think it was a good wake up call for us. As Sara has been very tired I have had to pick up a lot of extra responsibilities. This has left me often exhausted as well. It is easy to withdraw into yourself when you are exhausted and I think both Sara and I have been doing a bit of this.

Things are only going to get more exhausting when Baby gets here. In the past, making time and energy for one another was easy and we could let it come naturally. In the future, we are going to have to learn to make a conscious effort to do so.

Sara: I think the hardest part of Baby’s arrival will be adjusting to the changes in our relationship and responsibilities. Since Baby’s baptism is less than two weeks away (ironically, we have yet to have a baby to baptize!), I’ve begun preparations for both the baptism itself and the gathering of family and friends on that day. While we’ll only have a small number of guests compared to our wedding last year, I look forward to the opportunity to see some of our favorite people. Months ago, we contacted our parish to set up our baptism class and decided to have Baby baptized on Saturday, August 11 when Justin’s folks were able to be in town from North Dakota.

I think it’s going to be difficult to have so much company so soon after Baby’s birth. I know our typical hosting responsibilities will need to change, as I’m the only one that can feed Baby.

However, despite any potential challenges, we’re looking forward to the chance to formally declare our intentions of raising our Baby in our Catholic faith so soon after Baby’s birth.