35 weeks and counting

Today I am 35 weeks.

Exciting! I remember being 34 weeks pregnant with the boys and hoping to make it to 36 weeks. Didn't happen, but the boys turned out fine. That makes me feel better, as I am hoping to keep little Miss Missy tucked in until at least 37-38 weeks. But if it doesn't happen, I have every confidence that she'll be fine. (Check out optimistic me!)

Yesterday in the doctor's office, I met a woman who was waiting for her 6-week post-delivery appointment. She had her little baby with her, and when I say "little" baby, boy do I mean it. Apparently, she was born a month early, and 6 weeks later is just now fitting into newborn clothes! She weighed 3 lbs. 11 oz. when she was born. Can you imagine? Talk about a doll baby!

This makes me understand why people are always like "Wow, you did so well!" when I tell them that Cary was 4 lbs. 4 oz. and Dean was 4 lbs. 10 oz. -- even at 5 weeks early. I'm pretty sure it was all the fattening up I did of them during the early part of my pregnancy, when I was stuffing my face with any and everything. I wonder how big they would have been if I had actually made it to 36 weeks!

Curve Ball, of course, also will not be too shabby in the weight department (for an entirely different reason) but I'm less worried now, for some reason, that she'll be a sumo wrestler. Somehow, I've calmed down a little bit about it, and I just think she'll be bigger than she might have been without the diabetes, but not so big as to be a major, major issue. This is just my gut telling me this. (I hope I can depend on my gut.) I also hope she won't have low blood sugar upon delivery and have to go to the NICU. My gut is silent on that issue right now. But I'm so hoping for a normal post-delivery experience, where I get to keep my baby with me in my room and snuggle and practice nursing (at least until I need to get some sleep, when I will promptly send her chunky self to the nursery for a few hours. Don't judge me! Ain't no shame in that, folks!)

Anyway - we do another growth scan next Thursday, and then the following Monday, we'll have the conversation with both the perinatologist and the OB about delivery. So we are really getting close.

In fact, we're getting so close that I have started to think about how -- if in any way -- we should be preparing Cary and Dean for the complete obliteration of life as they know it. I have not really given this much thought at all up until now, but I guess I should be doing something, right? Should I buy a children's book?

Does anyone have good thoughts about how to help older siblings (who are still very much babies) be OK with getting a new baby sister? All ideas considered.