So. Seriously. How am I at 35 weeks already? Although I hope she stays put for 5 more weeks, it’s rapidly dawning on me that I could have a baby pretty much any day now. Good thing we “graduated” from baby class last night. Heh.
35 weeks! For fun, you can compare to 30 weeks when I was wearing the same outfit.
Size of the Baby: She’s the size of a coconut and somewhere between 18-20 inches long — which is basically her full “height” for now. She likely weighs more than 5 pounds at this point. I won’t have another ultrasound, so all the stats are just a guess anyway.
Weight gain/loss: Total gain of 26 pounds. Thankfully the rate has slowed back to a more normal 1 lb/week after some big jumps a few weeks ago. Still getting puffy hands and feet occasionally, but it hasn’t gotten any worse so that’s good.
Maternity clothes: I keep wanting to buy something new, but then I remind myself that I’ve got less than 2 months to go and I have enough to get by until then. Although yesterday I wore a button-down maternity shirt…and decided that my belly has outgrown it. Yikes.
Sleep: Still crappy. Still annoying. Still my biggest/only complaint at the moment.
Movement: This little girl is taking the alien-inside-my-belly thing to a whoooole new level. I’m pretty sure she is bruising some internal organs with all her squirming. The other day she was pushing repeatedly into my side and I was pushing back in an attempt to get her to knock it off since it was uncomfortable. I swear I felt a foot. Or an elbow. Or a knee. Whatever it was, it was SOMETHING POINTY.
I’m also pretty curious to know how she’s situated in there. Hopefully my doctor can tell me tomorrow if she’s head up or head down.
Food cravings: I recently picked up Starbucks for Melissa and me after an early morning meeting. She got an iced caramel macchiato, which inspired me to try the same, and ever since I’ve wanted either an iced coffee or my standard diet cherry limeade every day. Mmm.
The heartburn I complained about last week has improved a lot and has been almost nonexistent this week. Yay!
Best moment this week? Although I teleworked last Thursday and Friday, the fact that I didn’t actually go into the office made it feel almost like I had a 5-day vacation! I watched a lot of Tour de France, finished some projects, ran some errands, enjoyed time with Jose, and just had a nice week.
What I miss: So the one big pregnancy thing I haven’t experienced yet and actually wouldn’t mind feeling (at this point anyway) are Braxton Hicks contractions. Maybe this is a good thing, but I have to admit I’m kind of curious to know what they feel like and get a small preview of what’s to come.
What I’m looking forward to: I am feeling pretty overwhelmed by our to-do list and to be honest, I’m a little shell-shocked by the realization that we only have a few weeks left as a family of two. But I am also really, really, REALLY starting to look forward to meeting our little girl!!
Milestones: Baby is basically done with physical development and is mainly just gaining weight from now on. Cool! As for me, I’m still feeling great, if a little tired. My back and groin have started to feel a little achy in the last week, especially at the end of days when I’m mostly just sitting at my desk. But nothing awful.
What is this thing in my new car?
In other news, Jose installed the car seat base in the new Highlander on Sunday! (We tested it out with the seat, but then took the seat back inside for now.) It took about 2 minutes. You always hear that car seats are hard to install, but…um, there really wasn’t much to it? All cars made since 2002 have this LATCH system thing, and the car seat base has two clips that just clip onto the metal anchors in the seat. That’s all there is to it. Not really sure how you could do it wrong.
(Now that I’ve said that, someone will probably notice that we did something wrong.)
The glider that my parents bought us came in, but we’re still waiting on the ottoman and dresser. They said 7-14 days, so I’m expecting both of them to arrive sometime this week. I’m getting a little anxious to finish off the nursery but until the dresser arrives, I’ve got nowhere to put anything.
I’ve also been plotting out my maternity leave in earnest, which is kind of confusing. I am super lucky to be able to take a full 12 weeks of maternity leave, nearly all of which will be paid. (And really, the only reason that a small portion of it has to be unpaid is so that I can save enough leave to take time off at Thanksgiving and Christmas.) I am also really lucky to have a husband who will be able to take generous paternity leave. He’s planning on 3 or 4 weeks at minimum. Still, one would think that no one at NASA has ever had a baby before based on the number of different answers I get to the same questions!
You look awesome!
You look great, Sarah! We had no issues installing the carseat in the car, the hard part was getting the straps adjusted right when we were leaving the hospital! Oh, and I was also into the diet cherry limeades while preggo…that and the vanilla bean blended creme from Starbucks!