I was and still am lucky enough to have several friends and family members help me out during the last part of my pregnancy and after the birth. I carried Lilah very low and was physically unable to do much towards the end, including chase around my two-year-old. My mom was great about driving me around and helping me with the house and my mini zoo of four cats and three dogs. A fellow preschool mom has gone above and beyond in helping me by driving my older son to and from preschool for over a month now. Not to mention staying in my home with my two sons, so my husband could be in the hospital with me. Another friend stayed the second night in the hospital with me and helped me care for my daughter. She graciously catered to us, because I could barely get out of bed. My mother-in-law put herself in the line of fire between my two dueling boys the week after I got out of the hospital. I couldn’t have taken care of them without her. I also do not want to forget my great babysitter who was on call whenever I needed her.

I have the greatest OB who doesn’t miss a beat. She has seen me safely through three deliveries and I couldn’t have asked for a better doctor. I had a pretty good round of nurses this time at the hospital. There were two in particular who made things so much easier for me. The first nurse that I was lucky enough to have for two days was the nicest and most attentive nurse that I’ve ever had. She was the first nurse that I ever told how good they were. The end of my four-day stay gave me another personable nurse that was on top of her game.

I cannot forget my husband for giving me best gift of all, three beautiful children.

I know that all of these people would just say that they were doing their job or it was no big deal to help. However, I think it is a huge deal and I wish that I could find the right words to express my gratitude. Thank you doesn’t seem strong enough. Then again, maybe thank you are the two strongest words in our language. We just don’t say them enough.

But…

I’ll keep it real and simple by saying, some of us were just not born with bodies made to birth babies. The last few weeks have been the toughest. Top that with two little active boys that won’t cut their momma any slack. However, throughout this whole pregnancy I keep telling myself that this is it. This is the last time you’ll ever get to experience this again.

I’ve tried to envision myself as the mom in the Suave commercial that starts out independent and single, engaged, married, has a couple of kids and lets herself go by dressing up as the Easter Bunny. She then gets her old self back and looks glowing and beautiful pregnant with her third child. I love that commercial just for the inspiration and sheer accuracy of what happens to so many of us when we have kids.

If you haven’t seen this commercial, you can view it by:

1. Visiting www.suave.com
2. Click on “Our Story”
3. Click on “Advertising”
4. Click on “Anthem”

I decided to preserve myself in history as the “Suave Mom”; I had pregnancy pictures of the boys and me taken. I did this with my older son when I was pregnant with my second. The picture is adorable of him holding on to my stomach and looking up at me. Things didn’t go as smoothly with the addition of my second son. I tried to get the same shot with both boys hanging on to my belly and me out of the picture. That didn’t work, so I sat down clutching on to the youngest in a very uncomfortable position. Everyone is halfway smiling. Fine, I’ll take it. Then when I get the pictures back, I notice what my oldest son is doing with his hand. Nice.

Oh well, I guess this is my perfect and it doesn’t really matter anyway. In retrospect, having a baby is one of the biggest miracles of life. And, how lucky am I that I’ve had the opportunity to experience it three times?

Check out Pregnancy & Baby on JustBreatheMom.com.

When I was pregnant with my first child, old carrots did me in. My husband made me a grilled cheese sandwich with baby carrots on the side. His big mistake was that he gave me old carrots. You know the ones that are starting to crack and have white stuff on the side. Let this be a lesson to all men making dinner for the women carrying their child… Don’t give a pregnant woman carrots with white stuff! To say the least, my pregnant self was lost in tears. In my pre-baby days, I would have had no problem telling my husband what he could do with those decrepit carrots. However, those days are over, as you will soon read.

My second child brought on even stronger uncontrollable emotions. I’ve seen every episode of ER, minus the last two seasons, at least twice. They play two episodes a day on TNT and sometimes on Saturday afternoons. I always watched the show, but it became my addiction when I couldn’t work very much during my first pregnancy. One Saturday afternoon, my husband and I are watching TV and before the intro plays, I knew just by the title which episode was coming up. Once again, I lost it. I really lost it. My husband didn’t know what to do. I tried to explain that it was the episode where Dr. Greene dies and he’s trying to connect with his daughter, but he just didn’t get it. Men just don’t get it.

If you’re are still reading and connecting to what I’m saying, then get ready because this one tops them all. Recently, my husband and I were over at my sister and brother-in-laws house. My other sister-in-law was also there and she was reminiscing about a funny story that had to do with her sister. It wasn’t as amusing to me, because it was one of those stories where you had to be there. My sister-in-law who the story was about was crying so hard she couldn’t talk. This made my other sister-in-law cry as well. That’s all it took, because before I knew it I was smack dab in the middle of an ugly cry. And not just any ugly cry, the kind where I could barely breathe and I could feel it coming up my throat. This just made them laugh and cry harder, including the husbands. I literally had to go to the bathroom, cry it out and try to compose myself.

The saying, “A baby changes everything.” is true. Thanks to all three of mine, I now have an open channel of emotion. Granted after this, my last pregnancy is over, I’ll be able to not freak out on carrots, realize ER is just a show, and control the dreaded ugly cry. That is unless I watch Terms of Endearment… that gets me every time.

I don’t think so, I would have sworn on my life that my firstborn was a girl and I even cried at the ultrasound when I found out that he was a boy. Did I just publicly admit that? Anyway, I remember my doctor telling me that sometimes it turns out that what you get is what you’ve really wanted all along. Boy was she right. That curly haired little boy has been a complete joy making every day better with his little insights, creativity, and smile.

At my second born’s ultrasound, I was in complete denial. I kept trying to convince myself, the tech, as well as the baby inside me that there were three lines on the screen. You know the three lines they tell you to look for if it is a girl. There it was, a penis staring right at me. I held strong onto the idea of seeing three lines, but the tech told me as nicely as she could, “No, that’s a penis hon.” I didn’t cry this time, instead I accepted it was fate that if you’re connected to me in some cosmic way, you have two boys.

You see, boys are all around me. The running joke with me is that if you have some kind of relationship with me, you’ll have a boy. Four of my oldest and closest friends in the world have two boys each. Two of them had girls the third time around. Would I join the ranks of pigtails, tea parties, and pedicures? Hmmm… maybe my firstborn would have some insight into the results.

He doesn’t even understand that I’m having a baby, but for months, he has been telling me that he wants a baby girl. He even told me that he wanted to take his baby brother back to the baby shop and get a baby girl. Thankfully, he decided that “baby brother” was worthy enough to keep around and that he would just like to add a baby girl to the mix. Smart little kid, somehow he knows things the rest of us do not. Like he’s going to have a baby sister. I guess that means pigtails are in my future after all.