Meet the Thoenens!: Less than one week!

As of today, we're less than one week away from Baby T's due date, October 15! Needless to say, we're anxious, excited, nervous, and all of the other words that you can use to describe the days leading up to a big life event. We went to see our doctor yesterday and learned that Baby T seems to still be happy in his current home. His heart rate is good and he's still moving a lot, which tells us that he's comfortable. Bridget is doing well in that her weight gain has tampered off (normal at this time in the pregnancy) and her blood pressure remains good. After not getting "checked" since 36 weeks, we learned that Bridget's body has made some progress in preparing for labor over the last three weeks. She is starting to dilate and is about 25% effaced. Bridget was secretly hoping that the check would lead to an exclamation that "it's time!" As our doctor puts it though, this doesn't tell us much about when he will arrive (i.e., someone can go from no dilation to baby in a few hours, or can sit at three centimeters for weeks). So, now we wait. We have another appointment scheduled for 40 weeks on Monday, but we're both hoping that Baby T doesn't hold out until then. If he does though, our doctor said that she would likely recommend that we schedule an induction for the following Monday night, meaning that October 23 appears to be the latest date that we could meet our baby!! It seems like it's far off, especially since we thought he'd arrive by now, but it's nice to see a light at the end of this pregnancy tunnel.

In the meantime, thankfully Bridget is still feeling great physically. Bridget's new best friend is her birthing ball, which she hopes will help induce labor. Brad also gets a kick out of sitting on it :) Along with that, we've been walking more, eating spicy foods, and trying other things to get this party started. Brad's staying busy at work and Bridget's schedule is tapering off, especially since her last day before maternity leave will at most be sometime next week. Since we feel pretty prepared for Baby T to come home, we've kept ourselves busy with some last minute cleaning (it seems that our house can never be clean enough, especially with two rowdy puppies running around all of the time!), putting up our Halloween decorations, spending time with friends and family, and enjoying nice dinners out as a couple. We're spending some quality time with our fur kids, of course. Here is a picture of them after their recent hair cuts and Penny with her buddy, Frankenstein...