Week 36
Major events: Friday night wedding in Austin! Last run until after baby...
Size of baby: Head of romaine lettuce
Sleep: Fine,but starting to wake up to pee much more now due to MAJOR pressure...
Cravings: None
Aversions: None
Movement: Yes! So strong and painful! (Especially when he stretches me SO far sideways!)
Belly button in or out? In
Weight gain: 30 lbs.
Missing: Champagne??
Best part of this week: Getting to spend so much time with Ryan.
Hardest part of this week: Just dealing with stress and crazy emotions.
Looking forward to: Being done with all of the meal prep/cooking/baking and being able to focus on baby!
Emotions: Starting to feel SUPER stressed out that nothing is ready and with my hormones ramping up BIG time this week I am a wreck. I usually start the day off feeling pretty good (emotionally and physically) but by the time evening rolls around and I start getting tired and uncomfortable... that's when I start to REALLY freak out. Lots of tears have been shed over how much left there still is to do and how there just isn't enough time to do it in. I feel like a time bomb... guaranteed every night no matter what is going on, usually by 9:30 or 10 a major meltdown is occurring.
Signs of labor: Lightening (aka baby "dropping") and feeling the need to pee every second! Lots of Braxton Hicks! Although Braxton Hicks contractions feel completely different to me than labor contractions they are still annoying as heck!
WOWZERS SOO much has changed this week!! Week 36 started off as a normal week, but I could tell that on day 5 of this week my body started to making some BIG changes. Baby definitely dropped, which caused me to feel an enormous amount of pressure in my pelvis/bladder area. I started to feel the urge to pee ALL the time (even if nothing much comes out) and can even feel when his head rams up and down on my bladder. (On the bright side I can breathe a little bit better now and my chest cavity feels less crammed!) Heartburn has been horrible the last few days of this "week" and it pretty much makes me feel like crap all the way around.
Major events: Met with our doula for the last time! Baked a zillion breakfast items
Size of baby: Swiss chard
Sleep: Not great... just waking up multiple times every night to pee.
Aversions: None
Movement: Things got NUTS this week yall... during my first pregnancy, Heidi was very active and there were lots of kicks and strong movements, etc. but this baby... my GOODNESS it is absolutely freaky.
Belly button in or out? In
Weight gain: 30 lbs.
Missing: Nothing!
Best part of this week: Buying all (most) of the remaining items we need for baby, washing his clothes and starting to feel a little bit prepared for his arrival and seeing my grandma for her birthday
Hardest part of this week: Day 1 of this week I suddenly started feeling very uncomfortable. I was very crampy all day and just felt yucky. This caused us to freak out a little bit (thinking there was a chance he could come any day!) and made me stress out a LOT about not even having our bags packed. I think this day was enough to convince me to kick it into high gear... so we packed our bags and got a few more things ready. The hardest part is just not feeling ready yet...obviously he is not here yet (as of week 37 day 7) though so we're still chipping away at our to do lists.
Looking forward to: Getting excited to meet my little buddy!
Emotions: HUGE relief finishing all of the cooking/baking, but pretty stressed after a rough day 1 of this week
Signs of labor: Crampy with lots of tightening (mostly on day 1 of this week); as of the last day of my 37th week I am officially 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced!! (Which is just NUTS to think about because with my first pregnancy after laboring at home for 8 hours I was only 2cm. I'm already farther along than I was when I walked into the hospital to deliver Heidi!)
Week 38
Major events: Ran a 5K (what?? I had signed up for a 10K but by the time the race rolled around I decided it was just best to walk the 5K. The plan was to just jog a bit at the start and then walk the rest but I felt good enough to run it - slowly!!)
Size of baby: Leek
Sleep: Sleep got real bad this week. The pubic pressure (and
bladder pressure) makes sleeping very difficult and quite uncomfortable.
Cravings: None
Aversions: None
Movement: Yes, he is
still kicking the crap out of me, but I will say that movement seems to have
decreased a bit – I assume due to the fact that he has much less room in there
are this point
Belly button in or out? In...ish...
Weight gain: 33 lbs.
Missing: Bending, putting pants
on, etc… Every Time something slips out of my hands or starts to topple over I think to myself "Please don't fall on the floor! Please don't fall on the floor!"
Best part of this week: Going on my REAL last run (promise this time that's for real), having a
fabulous day with my girl and finally reaching the week 39 point – which means we
are finally at the “relax and wait” point and no longer scrambling to get a
zillion things done!
Hardest part of this week: Feeling really stressed after my dr. appt...(see my next post about Week 39 Anxiety!)
Looking forward to: Having (almost) nothing to do but just sit and wait :)
Emotions: Still not feeling quite ready for this pregnancy to end, even though I am getting more and more excited to meet him and hold him! I have just been trying to enjoy each and every moment I have with my baby inside of me, but I am now feeling SO much stress after my dr. appt...
Signs of Labor: 3-4cm dilated!
Major events: Easter Sunday
Size of baby: Personal sized watermelon
Sleep: Ooooh fine. Waking up frequently just to pee but really not in any pain or anything...
Cravings: None
Aversions: None
Movement: Yes - I am SOO going to miss feeling him roll around inside of me. This pregnancy went by SO fast it's hard to think about not being pregnant anymore!
Belly button in or out? In but very flat and strange looking... it looks as though it WANTS to pop out but can't
Weight gain: 33 lbs.
Missing: Not feeling like I have to pee every second of every day
Best part of this week: Feeling SO relieved after my dr. appt at 39 weeks 7 days. (Everything looks good and my doctor was super laid back and supportive about continuing to give baby time in there and allowing things to happen on their own. We still have plenty of time before we even start to talk about induction yay! I am feeling great and WAY less stressed.) I feel so much more "ready" now that I did even just a few days ago.
Hardest part of this week: Being so stressed!
Looking forward to: His arrival any day now...!!
Emotions: Soooo stressed this whole week (see my next post: Week 39 anxiety)
Signs of Labor: At my appointment (39w7d) my doctor performed a "membrane sweep", which essentially is when the doctor uses his/her fingers to separate the amniotic sac from the cervix (see here or just Google "membrane strip" or "membrane sweep"). Previously, I haven't been quite sure how I felt about this being performed, but since she was already checking my dilation when she asked I thought "might as well"! (It was not painful or uncomfortable and honestly I didn't feel a thing. I am grateful that she still asked for my permission though. I have heard of doctors just doing it without asking which would make me very uncomfortable.) The reason this is done is to encourage labor to begin - it triggers the release of the hormone prostaglandin (also found in semen in case anyone was wondering - a reason why they say sex can potentially help labor begin! Prostaglandin softens the cervix.)
Wells, we have officially made it to your due date!! I'm finally back in a place where I can just relax and wait for you to decide when you want to come. Can't wait to meet you baby boy!
