37 Weeks

Full term! Yaaay! It feels both exciting and kinda surreal to have come this far.

Size of the Baby: The size of a winter melon. Again with the melons! I asked my doctor last week if she had any estimate of weight at this point, and she said probably 6-6.5 pounds. No wonder my pelvic bones are starting to ache. I think the extra weight I’m carrying is finally starting to get to me in the form of aches, soreness, and general fatigue when I’ve had a particularly active day.

Weight gain/loss: 28-29 pounds by my count which officially makes me the heaviest I’ve ever been by a couple pounds. With only a few weeks to go, I’m pretty much over it at this point since 1) I’m likely to stay under a 35 pound gain which was one of my goals and 2) no matter what happens, the weight will start to go down soon after she is born!

Maternity clothes: I’m getting tired of my current wardrobe. And a couple of my bottoms (a pair of shorts and a pair of capris) are getting a little tight. Good thing I’m nearing the end because it seems silly to buy any more clothes at this point!

Sleep: It’s decent. Better than a few weeks ago, but worse than last week. I wake up once a night like clockwork around 3 or 4 am to go to the bathroom, but I’m feeling pretty lucky that it’s only once!

Movement: I think she’s finally slowing down, presumably because she’s getting so cramped in there. I still feel her move a lot, but not the full-belly jabs and spasms that I was feeling a few weeks ago. I’m pretty sure I’ve identified where both her butt and at least one of her feet are generally situated because she pushes them against my belly at regular intervals.

Food cravings: Cherrrrry limeaaaaade. Yep, still. It’s kind of appalling how many times I have been to Sonic lately. On the plus side, I even got a free one last week since it inexplicably took them like 15 minutes to get me one little ol’ drink.

Best moment this week? On Friday, my coworkers took Jose and me out to lunch for a mini baby shower, which was great! My coworkers are all pretty awesome. They gave us a couple great gifts, and I even got these fun girl balloons to decorate my desk. Yesterday I came in to find the normal balloons all droopy after the weekend, by the mylar balloons are still floating strong!

(In theory, I am going to clean up my desk before I go on maternity leave. We’ll see if that actually happens.)

The other best moment this week was the “date night” Jose and I had on Saturday night to celebrate some good things happening for him at work. We had a great dinner at Landry’s in Kemah and as a bonus, discovered a Hawaiian shave ice place there as well. Mmm, shave ice. So tasty!

What I miss: Not hobbling around. In the past week or two, I’ve definitely felt an increase in…pelvic pressure, I guess I’d call it? My butt starts to ache after sitting for a while, and when I stand up my pelvic bone? aches for a bit until I get loosened up. I guess it’s my pelvic bone anyway. I don’t really know. I just have weird aches in the baby region!

What I’m looking forward to: Meeting our baby! I am getting super curious to know what she looks like.

My friend and coworker Erin is coming back from maternity leave tomorrow and I’m excited to see her too. In addition to the niceness of just having her back in the office, she can tell me all about life with a newborn!

Milestones: When I googled “37 weeks,” it popped up an interesting article that indicates that over the past couple weeks, the baby has developed sensitivity to pain — i.e. they can specifically feel pain and not just general sensation. I wonder if the birth process is painful for them at all? Seems like a lot of squeezing. Yet another reason they come out crying, I guess.

Still haven’t had any contractions — Braxton Hicks or otherwise.

In other news, Jose thinks I am nesting. Ha! Well, I probably am. It feels like there is a ton to get done before she arrives and even though realistically I know we would be totally fine if she arrived tomorrow, I’m hoping we have 2 more solid weekends to go before D-Day! We did start packing a hospital bag over the weekend, so at least that’s (almost) in order.