36 Weeks

So my friend Kelly is at the hospital RIGHT NOW because she had her daughter this morning! Eeee! I’m super excited about that, but it also makes me realize that I am officially the next person I know in line to have a baby. For months, there’s been someone else in my circle of friends due before me. Not anymore!

Hard to believe there is just under a month — give or take — to go before baby girl arrives.

Size of the Baby: A honeydew melon! (Again with the melons. Yuck.) She’s around her final length of 18-20 inches and probably closing in on 6 pounds.

Weight gain/loss: About 27 pounds by my count. My doctor moved to a new office and they have a fancy new digital scale. Guess what? It weighs me 4-5 pounds heavier than my scale at home, which of course is even “better” than the 2-3 pounds more that the scale at her old office did. So according to them, I had gained 31 pounds as of last week. Awesome.

Either way though, she hasn’t said a thing this whole time so I’m obviously way more sensitive about my pregnancy weight than my doctor is. I figure that means I’m in the “obsessing-like-a-typical-girl-but-otherwise-totally-fine” category.

36 Weeks!

Maternity clothes: I got a new dress that I’d ordered from Zulily weeks ago and forgotten about. (That’s the side effect of Zulily. I forget I’ve ordered things by the time they arrive.) I got to wear it yesterday and best part, again, is that it’s not actually a maternity dress so I’ll be able to continue wearing it after next month. Gotta love the amount of empire waist clothes available these days.

Sleep: For the past several nights, I’ve actually slept pretty darn soundly! Yaaaaay!

Movement: The internet keeps telling me that baby’s movements will become less frequent as she runs out of wiggle room, but let’s just say I have not experienced that yet…at all. It’s a different kind of movement than it used to be, but she is most definitely squirming around in there — and she’s getting stronger. My guess is that at the moment, her butt is on the top right side of my belly and her arms and legs stretch out to the left because I feel a lot more pushing on the left side than the right.

Food cravings: Same stuff as always — cold drinks like iced decaf coffee or diet cherry limeade. Not much heartburn again this week either, which is great!

Best moment this week? Jose and I met a photographer/friend-of-a-friend over in Seabrook last night for some maternity photos! Aside from the mosquitoes, we had a really fun time and I’m excited to see how they turn out. It’s really a shame that the only time people get nice photos done is at their wedding and when they’re having a baby. We both made mental notes to schedule a family photo session every year or so!

What I miss: Nothing new — running, margaritas, etc. But I’m content to continue missing those things for a while longer. No big deal.

What I’m looking forward to: Dinner with some friends tonight, a baby shower lunch with my coworkers on Friday, and hopefully meeting Kelly and John’s new baby girl sometime soon!

Milestones: The only organ that still needs a bit of maturing is the lungs. Cool! And at my appointment last week, my doctor also determined that she is head down, which was very nice to hear.

The internets repeatedly imply that I should be experiencing all these awful symptoms at this point, or that I should basically feel like a whale. “Many women nine months pregnant are dealing with swelling, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, back and sciatic pain, along with constant poking in your ribs.” I’m happy to report that aside from minor swelling and some definite poking, I’m in good shape. I feel pretty darn good overall and if my belly didn’t keep getting in the way, I’d probably forget I was pregnant.

In other preparation news, we picked up the dresser for the baby’s room on Sunday afternoon — big thanks to our friend Jason for helping us get it home! — so we officially have everything we need for the nursery. (Except for the awesome rug that turned out to be backordered, and won’t be here till August or September. Oh well.) I started putting things away that evening, but paused to let Jose replace the light fixture with a ceiling fan/light combo. That process is taking a bit longer than we expected since we spent a lot of time double/triple/quadruple checking the structural and electrical setup. We ran out of daylight on Sunday evening and were busy with photos last night, so hopefully we can finish it tonight.

And finally, we met with a pediatrician yesterday to see her office and ask some basic questions. We liked her a lot, and our only real hesitation is that she’s a really popular doctor! That’s not really a problem, since it obviously means people like her, but it does mean you usually have to wait to see her and if you make an appointment last minute, you’ll probably see one of the other doctors in the practice. We already had another appointment set up with another recommended pediatrician next week, so we’ll go meet him too and then pick one.