37 Weeks

This - is crazy - to see.... I've been watching this little chart since the beginning. I can't believe I'm already so close to the end of it. And yet it seems so far away too....


Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard(SWISS WHAT???). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

See what your baby looks like this week.

Crazy crazy times.

Yes, I'm very uncomfortable... yes I'm still in pain, and yes I'm getting giddy and excited, and yes I'm terrified at the same time. And all this is happening, preparing for this new life... and my grandpa is declining pretty quickly. We thought he might have more time then he does. We are just waiting on the Lord, trying to spend time with him - he is encouraged when his family is near him. Chloe was conceived the week after my grandmother died. If this all goes together like it looks like it might with Papa... I seriously will not know what to think. Pray for him and my family. It is looking to be an insane month!

34 Weeks

How your baby's growing:

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

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Update on me:

• I've been feeling very energetic and "nesty" in the mornings, and by the evenings completely exhausted and in need of laying down.
• I've been getting a lot of cleaning/organization type household stuff done, but am still having little to no motivation to finish up the few business tasks I have left to check off my list (taxes, burning photos to dvds, new terabyte storage drives to format, clearing memory cards, invoicing my last client, getting settled into gigbooks)
• We have Chloe's playpen set up in the dining room, makes it all seem very real!
• I am still having upper abdominal tension, stretching and rib pain, but I think I'm just learning to cope with it
• I've been sitting on the exercise ball a lot. Good for the body, giving baby enough room to be in the head down position, and good for my core to prepare for birth. I roll off it sometimes though :-)
• We are enjoying our childbirth class with Carol Peterson. I've learned SO much about childbirth that I never knew. I'm so excited that I have a midwife who will subscribe much more to the philosophies I'm learning at my delivery. Carol is also a doula, and it would be really nice to have her or another doula at my delivery, but unfortunately it is a bit costly for us and we are pinching every penny at this point so it's not in the cards.
• I'm starting to wonder how the cats are going to do with the new addition to our family... all we can do is try to prepare them a little. I think in general they will be ok. They are very curious kitties and they think the whole house belongs to them so that will be a shift, but I'm going to trust it's going to be ok.
• I noticed my first stretch mark on my tummy yesterday and it's getting bigger. eek.
• I am getting so excited to hold my baby!!!
• We had an awesome photo shoot with Danielle. I posted my favorite pictures on facebook, and I will post some here soon, too.
  

33 Weeks

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (heft a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. He's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.) These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.

At this stage in fetal development, your baby could grow a full inch more this week alone — especially if he or she has been on the shorter side. Weight gain can range from a third more growth to a full doubling before the big debut.

The level of amniotic fluid in your uterus has reached its maximum at 33 weeks pregnant, making it likely that you have more baby than fluid now. That's one reason why you're probably feeling lots of nudges and pushes — there's less liquid to cushion the blows. (Of course that means you're even closer to your baby now!)

If your uterine walls had eyes, here's what you'd see: your fetus acting more and more like a baby, with his or her eyes closing during sleep and opening while awake. And because those uterine walls are becoming thinner, more light penetrates the womb, helping your baby differentiate between day and night (now if only baby can remember that difference on the outside!).

And good news! Your baby has reached an important milestone about now: The development of his or her own immune system that (along with antibodies from you) will be able to provide protection from mild infections.

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Quick me update: Still having upper nerve/abdomen pain, lots of groin pain, and I think I'm starting to waddle. I'm having at least one Braxton Hicks contraction a day, I believe! It's crazy. I'm tracking her kicks daily using this kick counter. Lot of interesting movements of limbs inside me. Still having trouble determining sometimes what body parts are what. Can't wait to see her face!

29 Weeks

Almost hitting 30 weeks - I seriously don't believe it. I know I say that so much but it's true! I'm feeling tons of movement these days - a few times a day at certain times she seems to be much crazier, sometimes I think she must be pedaling or kicking right against me, other times I watch my belly bounce up and down. It seems like whenever that happens no one else sees it though, I try to pull someone over to watch or feel and she stops. Argh! lol. Sometimes the movements seem like she's having little spasms. lol... I assume it's normal.

Symptom wise, still having upper abdomen and rib cage pain on the left side. I think this will be with me till the end of my pregnancy. It is very sucky and sometimes stops me from doing some things. I'm trying to start exercising a little bit too because I'm feeling sluggish and I feel like my body isn't prepared to support the rest of this baby's weight sometimes. I can't believe how much bigger I'm going to get... sometimes I think about it and I have heart palpitations. lol. I've also started having some pain in my hips and joints - I've heard this is pretty normal. Sometimes I have trouble walking. So, I'm probably going to be waddling soon. I've also started to get my RLS symptoms back (restless legs) which had sort of disappeared for a while. FUN!!!

29 Weeks

Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 - 3 pounds (like a butternut squash) and could be 15-17 inches long from head to heel. Though she's getting pretty close to her birth length, she still has to chub out a bit. In fact, over the next 11 weeks, she'll more than double — or even come close to tripling — her weight. And as she grows and room in your womb gets tighter, you'll be less likely to feel those big kicks and more likely to get poked by an elbow or jabbed by a knee. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet her increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because her bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day. She is able to use all five of her senses, hearing sounds and seeing bright lights in her mother's environment, and tasting, touching, and even smelling the amniotic fluid surrounding her.

26 weeks, belly shot, crib

26 weeks

Your baby is inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of her lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when she's born and takes that first gulp of air. And she's continuing to put on baby fat. He now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14-15 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. Most babies this age, yours included, still like to snuggle in a slightly curled position inside the uterus (thus the term "fetal position"). And at just over two pounds, she has doubled in weight from four weeks ago.

The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. She may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. And even though the sounds your baby hears are muffled (thanks to the creamy coating of vernix covering those ears), she may recognize both yours and your partner's voices. So this might be a good time to read and even sing to your baby (or rather, your belly). Also, your baby's taste buds are very developed now too (with more taste buds than he or she will ever have outside the womb, actually).

I also read somewhere that this week and last week the baby's limbs were growing to almost their birth length. This makes sense becuase I have been truly feeling more movement that is stretching out, and reaching higher then ever before. I was in shock today on the drive home feeling sensations almost 3-4 inches above my belly button, you can tell she is stretching out and pushing in new ways! It's crazyyyyyyyy (and a little uncomfortable). I'm still having the under-the-bra, across the muscle of my rib cage pain. Not sure what to do about it.

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I have been slacking on the belly pictures because the last 3 weeks (excluding Thanksgiving) have been some of the craziest of my life, trying to get caught up from all the fall weddings. I couldn't get it all quite done, I'm only one person, but I hope to get a lot more finished this week! November was super productive and for that I am happy. ANYWAY... that being said.

This picture was taken on Thanksgiving at 25+ weeks. Brian took it :)

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We also picked out and ordered our crib/changing table, our Christmas gift from Beth & Paul (brian's parents). We are so so so thankful for everyone helping us out with all these expenses and things we need. We are so blessed! We decided to go sans dropside, and I'm glad because I'm hearing about all kinds of recalls and proposed bans on drop-side cribs lately. I think they are pulling millions of them from the market, so we decided on the sturdy non-drop side instead. Our crib is not a luxury crib by any means, it was one of the most affordable ones we could find. But I liked the style, simple, slightly traditional, and white.

Graco Lauren, in White. It is convertible but it's so affordable that if we don't get to it, I'm not worried about it! I wanted the changing table to match too because we already have a few different wood colors going on in that bedroom, and all the molding in the room is white.

emotional breaks & maybe a name?

I had an emotional/hormonal breakdown of some sort today for no reason at all except the stress of playing a board game. I have no idea what came over me, I could feel it building and I just LOST it. Anyway once I got away from everyone and cried for a bit I felt better but I still feel like I'm teetering on the edge of something. Maybe stressful board games with too much competition aren't in my near future for a little while. lol.

Course that wasn't the first one... on our drive to Maryland, I was checking in on people's facebooks, as I do, and I saw that I had been "un-friended" by someone. I was so upset and confused I cried. OVER FACEBOOK. It turns out it was a total fluke and the person did not un-friend me on purpose, but you can see where I am at emotionally/relationally. Oh Lord, dear Lord... please give Brian strength to deal with me. He has 14.5 more weeks of me like this. Ok, you know I'm going to be a mess after the baby is born too (hopefully a joyful mess)...so maybe longer ;)

For the last 5 days I've been dealing with some very very weird, slightly burning, slightly feeling like muscle strain and odd pains near my rib cage, under my bra line and stretching down an inch or two. They are mainly concentrated on the left hand side. I can't figure them out and they are irritated when 1) i sit too long in certain positions, or 2) I walk around too much, holding any weight at all (like my purse, etc). I'm not sure what is going on. I thought it could be related to dehydration, so I'm trying to drink fluids as much as I can, but I'm sure I could up that a bit. It sounds silly, but pray for me because it is really painful and getting in the way of a lot... I feel very weak and ridiculous cuz I can't do as much and have to stop doing things due to the exhaustion and discomfort of the pain.

We have been going back and forth on some names for a while. I am someone who has no problem getting these things picked out ahead of time, and I always envisioned we would know the babys name the second I found out the sex, but it has been so much harder then I imagined. Yesterday I ran across one I've seen a hundred times, but it hit me anew, and it is one I think Brian and I both like equally. The meaning is beautiful too. We'll see. It's simple and sweet. But, maybe I'll just keep them all bouncing in my head until I see that little face... it could go either way at this point!

Have a few pics from Thanksgiving to post - hopefully I can in a few days when I get home. I thought December was going to slow down big time with work, but the first week is still looking INTENSE. I'm dreading/grateful for the work.