Size of the Baby: About the weight of a pineapple, aka a bit over 4 pounds, and still somewhere around 18 inches. Seems to me that she’s probably pretty close to full length, with a few pounds still to gain before she’s born.
Weight gain/loss: Depressing. I am sitting at 24 pounds gained. One more pound and I will see a nice, round 200 pounds on the scale. There have been a couple other times in my life that I’ve seen a number that starts with “2” on the scale, and it has never lasted more than a few weeks since 200 pounds turns out to be my breaking point — that number never fails to kick my weight loss motivation into high gear. I had (naively?) hoped to stay under 200 pounds while pregnant, but I knew that would be tough. 7 weeks to go…hopefully I can keep the total weight gain under 35.
I’m also starting to get some regular swelling in my hands and feet. Not too bad, but retaining fluid probably doesn’t help in the weight gain department either, eh?
Maternity clothes: One of my two pairs of work pants is starting to get tight. They have the “demi panel” and it doesn’t fit as well anymore with my belly getting so big. I guess I’ll be wearing a lot of skirts and dresses for the next 7 weeks.
Sleep: I am tired. Sleep is annoying. I wake up every night to pee, but at least it’s only once. I’m getting REALLY tired of just rolling from one side to the other all night long.
Movement: She’s getting stronger and bigger, and she’s starting to cause me discomfort every so often. Over the weekend, she seemed to be resting on a nerve or something, because I kept getting tingly spasms in my upper thigh.
Food cravings: Nothing in particular. I’m still thirsty ALL the time.
Best moment this week? Last night in baby class we got a tour of the hospital, which I had been looking forward to. This came right after a video on epidurals, which kind of freaked me out — not because of the needle or anything like that, but rather the long list of possible (though rare) side effects. Lists of possible side effects always freak me out.
Anyway, so I was still thinking about irrational things like getting paralyzed from a bad epidural (which is all but physically impossible, according to the nurse anesthetist and dad-to-be who happens to be in our class) when we walked across to the hospital. We saw the labor rooms and the C-section area and the nursery and the postpartum rooms and after that I felt a lot better. We also saw several very cute babies, including one that was literally about 5 minutes old. It all made me very excited to see my own baby, even if I am still in slight denial that she can’t just magically pop out of my body and into the world.
(One random observation: the labor rooms are bigger and nicer than the postpartum rooms. Shouldn’t they reverse this? After all, I’ll be in the labor room for <24 hours and will be pretty distracted during that time by, you know, being in labor. But I’ll be spending 48-72 hours in the postpartum room. Seems like it’d be better to spend more time in the bigger, nicer room! Oh well.)
What I miss: Sub-100 degree weather. For real. I’m melting over here.
What I’m looking forward to: My parents left Charlotte this morning and will be here tomorrow for a 6-day visit! And my Houston baby shower is this weekend! I am excited for that.
Milestones: More bone hardening, more brain development, more sucking and swallowing practice. And just hanging out, waiting to be born!
In terms of us being ready, I am starting to feel crunched for time with a very long to-do list! But I know we’ll handle things fine even if we don’t dot every i and cross every t…right??
The good news is water weight falls right off after the baby is born! 🙂
The big labor and delivery room is not for you. It is for the couple of L/D nurses, OB, pediatrician, ansethesiologist, pediatric nurse, possible NICU doctor, and all the equipment these people will bring in minutes before your baby is born. Seriously, there are a lot of people that come in at the last minute. The good news is you hardly notice you’re so focused on what is going on with you. :0
New babies don’t need much – you’ll be fine.
So, they told us there will be 5 people in the room — me, Jose, my doctor, my nurse, and the baby’s nurse. That doesn’t seem like too many. But I do get that there will be plenty of other people coming in and out, and that the crowd could grow depending on whether there are complications, etc.
Still, it wasn’t just the size of the room — it was the condition! It was just nicer overall. Nicer bathroom, nicer decor, etc.
Neither of the rooms are sized for your comfort. In fact, some very nice very expensive hospitals don’t even have private rooms for post-delivery. They are sized for the medical team helping you. 🙂