Happy, happy, happy! I'll gladly take this mood swing! I've just had such a good, productive week, and that makes me happy. I've maintained a clean home and got many things done in the meantime in preparation for new baby. It's like I've found a new rhythm. I like it. It makes me happy.

I'm also happy about this baby. I feel like I've had every kind of emotion imaginable during this pregnancy, and I'm liking this happy, anticipatory excitement. I feel like I have more energy, and I don't worry about the aches and pains too much. I'm even not worried about labor! Wow! I remember my pregnancy with Sam, and after the birth, Dan was working ten hour days in Greenville, six days a week. What a strain. I think that inhibited a lot of 'new baby' happiness, and I worried a lot about how I was going to handle it all. With Dominic, I was so scared of labor. I just didn't want to go through labor. I was in denial when I was in labor. It was hard for me to get very excited. And with Rose, I was clueless...and had a weird, not normal string of events at the end of the pregnancy...which, all in all, still left me very happy.

So this time around, now that the stress from the holidays is way past, I've had time to prepare my home for a new life, I am living in that prepared space and hopefulness, it is just a very happy place to be! I have no worries about the kids, and how we'll all work this out, or how I'll get back to school, or, well, anything. Which is very unusual for me. I think it's the comfort of knowing that we're in a good place right now. Dan has a job, is working close, is home on the weekends. He's here. He's dependable. I've really been trying to tighten up on discipline with the kids the last few weeks, so when new baby is here, and I tell them to do something, it won't be as difficult to enforce, they'll know (hopefully!) At the same time, I keep telling the kids ways they can help out when new baby comes. With all the food we've been stockpiling in the freezer, I was telling Rose and Dominic how they could make lunch and dinner! They seemed quite pleased about that idea. I think a huge part is my comfort level with the doc and midwife we've chosen, and just idealizing about the whole 'perfect' birth. I think it gives me a lot of the hope an excitement that I have. And lastly, especially in these last couple weeks, I think it's just been a lot of working hard to make a space for this new life, and after many weeks of sluggishness, it feels good to be productive. It feels so rewarding to look at the fruits of my work around me, whether it be a clean house, or even just a clean kitchen, or a freezer of food, or those newly washed baby clothes waiting in newly lined dresser drawers.

A very happy feeling, indeed. Praised be to God!