Just about 2 weeks left (as of tomorrow) until my due date! I feel like it’s gone really fast these last few months! I posted a bunch of photos at the bottom of the progress of the baby’s room so far! We still have a lot of decorating to do in there, and the new window will be coming in sometime in the next week so Jody will install that, put molding around the window, and then we can hang curtains – that will make it look much more complete (and we’ll get some decorations and pictures on the walls, and we’ll get a bigger dresser sometime, and Jody’s going to make a white side table for by the chair, etc.). But it’s a baby’s room, and we have enough things ready to go now that I feel mostly no stress about any of that. Of course, I do want the baby to stay in my belly until close to its due date so I have time to 100% finish everything business-wise, and also time to read a couple books on newborn care and sleeping and such, so I feel not just like we’re physically ready to care for a baby, but also like I’m mentally ready and have a plan!
WEEK: 37
MONTH: 9
TRIMESTER: 3
GENDER GUESS: I’m still pretty sure it’s a little boy in my belly! In fact, I get more and more sure each day I think (I’ll honestly be so shocked if a girl comes out at this point cause I’m so sure it’s a boy!)! And because I’m so sure, I’ve really super warmed up to the idea of a boy – I was at Babies R Us one day this past week and I barely even looked at the little girl stuff, I was very focused on the cute little boy outfits they had (not that I bought anything, just in case)!
BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: The baby is pretty much just putting on weight at this point, getting itself all fattened up for the outside world (and its first Winnipeg winter – yuck!). So baby can keep gaining weight, but hopefully not too much since I have to push it out (oh so scary!)! And the big news for baby (and us) is that it’s now considered full term (as of the beginning of Week 37)!! If I went into labor now the baby’s organs would most likely be fully developed, and I could be in regular Labor & Delivery at the hospital now instead of high risk – yay (those rooms and that whole area are much nicer I hear!)!
BABY’S SIZE: Baby likely weighs somewhere in the 6-pound range, so more than 6 lbs. but less than 7.
BABY LOOKS LIKE: Here’s the diagram for week 37, it’s a total real complete baby in there, so crazy! ::
BELLY PHOTO:
WEIGHT GAIN: I’m pretty much hovering around 40 pounds. I just make myself feel better knowing that probably 8 pounds or so is water retention so that’ll go away within a few days of the baby being born. So then I’m not too far off-course from the ideal 30 lb. max. And I just measured my belly this morning and I’ve added probably around 10-11 inches from pre-pregnancy – I have no idea what the “norm” is, but I still think my belly is on the small side compared to many (which I’m happy about right now cause I’m suddenly now not looking forward to the blob of extra skin that will be there after the baby is born, yuck, so the less extra skin the better and the faster it can shrink back to its normal size!)!
SYMPTOMS: Still just feeling very preggers these days. Still lots of acid reflux, still super swollen ankles and feet (with a nice, pretty crease at my ankles). Still very swollen legs from water retention. Huffing and puffing when I stand up or sit up from laying down. Feeling very awkward when doing lots of normal things, even getting in and out of the car! Very awkward if I’m ever sitting on the floor and need to stand up, that’s a pretty graceful sight! 
It’s so hard getting dressed on the bottom half. I was thinking the other day that this is what it’ll feel like when I’m old – really I have all the symptoms of being old! I need to walk really slowly, get random aches and pains, swollen feet and ankles, water retention, hard time standing up, hard time walking up stairs, uncomfortable sleeping, achy body sometimes. Luckily it’ll go away for me in a few weeks! I still get aches where my legs meet my body and in my very lower abdomen when I stand up sometimes, and sometimes when I’m walking.
I’m assuming I’m still having Braxton Hicks contractions to prepare myself for labor, but I never notice or feel them, or maybe I don’t know what they are so don’t know what to feel for. I know a couple months ago I was apparently having one at my doctor’s office and he could feel it but I couldn’t, so that makes me feel a little better that hopefully they’re happening and I just don’t know.
I feel the baby more than ever now! Some of it’s little kicks/pushes out with its feet are really uncomfortable, it’s getting strong!!! I don’t really feel any movements down low, I’m sure cause of the anterior placenta and it’s legs and bum are on the top of my uterus so that’s what I feel all the time. And it’s SOOOOOOO super cool when the baby is so active that I can see it moving through my belly, I can’t get over how amazing that is – even though a part of me still can’t believe it’s a baby in there! And it’s still getting the hiccups a lot, it’s both cool and feels really weird cause of being so rhythmic.
CURRENT MOOD: I’m feeling a lot more relaxed in many ways than I was two weeks ago, because now we’re so much more prepared. The baby’s room is mostly done and looking sooooooooo wonderful!!! In the past two weeks, Jody finished the closet and put lots of shelving and a clothes bar in there, he stained the floors in the room (and re-stained all the hardwood floors upstairs and it looks AMAZING up there now)! He put together the crib, spray-painted an old dresser I had white so we can use that for now until we get a big dresser like I want, and in the past few days we’ve gotten a big area rug and a gliding chair and ottoman! It’s so pretty in there!!!!
Things we still need to do in there: replace the window when it comes in next week, then put the molding around the window, and I need to get a curtain rod and curtains still; Jody is going to make two long shelves to hang on the wall by the chair and ottoman and I’ll put little stuffed animals, books, pictures frames, etc. on there – lots of cute decorations; we need to hang some things on the other walls – we have a serious lack of decor going on in there and that will make it look much more complete (that and the window stuff); I’m going to find some baskets I like and Jody’s going to build a square cubby-hole thing for me (they sell one like it at Ikea but of course we don’t have an Ikea here yet) with 4 cubby holes and I’ll use that for putting books and toys in; I want a small white side-table for next to the chair (Jody may build that, along with about 5 other identical side tables for various places in our house); I want to get a much longer dresser sometime as soon as possible, so it can fit the changing pad and a diaper caddy and still have extra room on it – and of course for the extra drawer space!; and I need to get a pail for the dirty cloth diapers, and a trash can as well. It seems like a long list, but at least when I look in the room it’s a baby’s room and we could make do just fine as of right now!
The rest of our house is also starting to look better again. Tonight we’ll finally be sleeping upstairs again after a week of sleeping downstairs, and we’re moving the mattress that we’ve had in our living room for the past week into my office on the first floor, which will also double as a guest room for at least the next few months. The new bathroom downstairs is mostly done – well tiles, heated floor, paint, lighting and toilet are all in, and the washer and dryer are in there now (and I LOVE having that on the main floor now!). Jody needs to finish the vanity – we’re using an old vanity (the frame part) for now, but we need to get a new countertop and sink for it and get that hooked up. We’ll eventually, a couple or few months down the road, have a clawfoot tub in there as well, but that’s way down the list in priorities right now. Jody will in the next few days be finishing installing all the random molding that needs to be put back or newly put in around the house, and I think tonight he’s going to move most of his tools back to the workshop so we can move our dining room back to its normal positioning. And then I can clean too and get rid of some of the dust covering our floors downstairs! So anyway, things are looking so good and feeling so much more complete and our house would be mostly ready to have a baby in it right now! And all the baby’s clothes and blankets and sheets and everything have been washed and put away, so I love that!
On the emotional and mental side, I’m kind of all over the place and sometimes feel one way and sometimes another way. I love to go look at the baby’s room, and now go in there and sit in the chair and imagine that in a few weeks I’ll be sitting in that exact same spot with a baby in my arms. It still doesn’t seem real to me though. I’m doing all this preparation and it still hasn’t even remotely REALLY hit me that we’re really going to have a baby, a real baby coming home with us. I’m pretty sure it won’t seem real until I’m holding this baby in my arms – I hope I bond right away, I’m sometimes worried about that since it doesn’t seem real to me yet.
I also have lots of conflicting thoughts and worries and emotions, which I’m pretty sure are completely normal – after all, my life is about to so hugely change. Sometimes I’m so excited, I think about loving this little being and helping it grow into a good person, and I think so much about ways to be a good parent (I want to be consistent, I want to (as I heard recently on a radio program) provide our child with high levels of love and warmth and affection and also a high level of structure, oh so many other things). Then there are other times when I worry – whether this is what I want, whether I’ll like being a mom, whether I’ll be good at being a mom. I worry that I’ll lose my own dreams and hopes and lose any independence and only see myself as a mom, I worry I’ll forget what was important to me before, that I’ll become boring because all I’ll have to talk about is kids, I worry that I’ll become too mom-ish and not fun or sexy or any of that. I worry about whether this will bring Jody and I closer together or whether it will do the opposite (as so many people have told me happens when the children are older), and all the ways it will affect our relationship. I worry about the baby not being healthy in some way and that affecting our lives and stress levels. I worry about the baby being allergic to animals (one of my WORST nightmares) and then I end up weeping all over the place – and I would really resent this baby if I had to give up James and Emma (I can’t write more, I’m already starting to cry at the thought). I worry about not getting back in shape fast enough and feeling awful about myself and my body and being depressed. I’m worried about all the things I need to do to be a good parent and raise a good human being. I’m worried about Jody and I not getting any couple time. I’m sure there are other things I’m missing, sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the things and all the fears and all the wonderings. Other times I’m so excited for this new adventure and excited for myself and excited for Jody and I to go through this together.
Besides all the emotional worries listed in the paragraph above though, I just feel better and better with each thing we get crossed off the list. At least I feel like I have a little more control then – and that feels so good when I have no control over when the baby will come, no control over what labor will be like (and that’s a whole other set of fears, I watched a little video of labor and it was partially the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen when the whole nether regions were spreading and a monster-looking head was appearing, and then it was the most miraculous thing once the whole baby came out and the couple got to see it – then I was weeping all over the place at the miracle of it), no control over how I’ll handle labor, and we have no idea what kind of personality our baby will have and if it will be an easygoing baby or not so much, and of course just the whole being a new mom to a newborn thing – I read, I listen to audiobooks while editing, I talk to people, but I know I can’t be completely prepared and will just have to largely learn when this baby comes. So, crossing things off the list feels really, really, really good. Also, my parents are coming in a week to visit and bringing with them tons of baby gear that they bought for us (much of it when we were visiting them in August but we couldn’t take it back on the plane with us), and I’m so excited for my mom to help me get all the last things completed and to set up all they are bringing and I think then I’ll really feel like we’re very physically ready for a baby in our house!
CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: Nothing really that I can think of. Oh – yes, I’ve been sort of, so not like I need to run out and get it or have Jody go get it for me but if I’m out I’ll get it – craving apple cider. I went to Grand Forks a couple weeks ago for an afternoon and got a half-gallon at a grocery store (I’ve still never seen it sold here!!) and I drank that so fast, it was fabulous!!!! I’m a Michigan girl so grew up drinking so much apple cider in the fall, so it’s partially for the taste and partially for the feeling and emotional aspect of it. I found that Tim Horton’s sells a hot apple cider so I get that a lot these days. It’s not the same, it’s a little too spiced and definitely doesn’t have the fresh taste that cold out of a gallon has, but it makes me happy, smells amazing and tastes pretty fabulous!
Tomorrow (today really, according to when I’m publishing this post!) I have my next OB appointment, and I’m excited about him doing an internal exam to see if I’m effacing or dilating at all yet. And if I’m not, I think he’s going to get things started a little by “sweeping the membrane”. I’ve heard it hurts quite a bit, so I really hope my body has already started on its own. Now this doesn’t mean I’ll be having the baby right away at all, just that it will get things started which is good! I really want this baby to come sometime around its due date, and I don’t want to be waiting a week after or two weeks after, never knowing if it will come on its own or if I’ll have to get induced (which scares me cause you go from 0 to 90 all at once!)! So, I’m very excited about tomorrow just to find out what’s going on!
It’s also weird to me to know that I could have the baby any time now – but somehow I don’t really think about that too much, I just don’t think it’s going to happen because I’m not ready for it to come yet, I have way too much to do and finish and I’ve more often heard about 1) first babies being late rather than early, and 2) babies coming when the moms are ready but when the moms are rushing to finish things the babies don’t come. So I fully anticipate and plan on being able to write another probably two weekly updates at least!
Okay, here are some photos of our wonderful little baby’s room so far! And yes, it will look a lot more complete and decorated by the time the baby arrives, but even saying that, Jody and I are so so so in love with it right now and think it’s so warm and sweet and inviting and happy and bright and all sorts of good adjectives!!!
by Rebecca Whitney
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