Ready For Christmas

December has been a whirlwind month. I feel bad for not blogging in almost a whole month. However, it’s been tough keeping my head up over the past few weeks. Today we are on our way out of town in preparation for Christmas. It is going to be another crazy 5 days, but at least I’m off work and spending time with my family. I’m hoping to get a few more blog posts in over the next few days. But here is a quick summary of the last few weeks:
I had a week of vacation where I managed to get a significant amount of baking and reading done. Hopefully in the next few days I will get a chance to post about my reading adventures. I managed to read 3 books in December, thanks to my week of vacation, which means I accomplished my goal of reading 12 books in 2015!
I went back to work and, again, struggled with the challenge of feeling like I’m not quite in the right place in life. Work is so busy, demanding, and tiring, and it makes me really question if I’m doing the right things with my life. 
Pregnancy has continued to be exhausting. I am almost 20 weeks pregnant now, which means that I am getting bigger, gaining more weight, and feeling more uncomfortable. The first few days back after my vacation I was feeling a lot of cramping and that was stressful. Thankfully it was only that – no bleeding, no contractions, no broken water. I think that the worst part of my job these days is seeing all the bad and unfortunate pregnancy outcomes. This week alone I think I dealt with at least 4 or 5 peri-viable (22-23 week) broken waters or deliveries. It’s been hard to see that happening. 
After all those difficult outcomes at work, the worst thing an anxious, pregnant mom of two boys could do is plan an anatomy ultrasound for the morning that her Christmas Vacation starts. After a tense hour of having a stranger smear gel over my swollen belly and take hundreds of pictures of my unborn baby without saying a single word, it turnes out that everything looks okay! Normal anatomy (including heart, spine, and palate), high anterior placenta, long, closed cervix… And, it’s a Girl!