36 Weeks

Woohoo, I made it to the 36 week mark! Isn't that some sort of milestone? I think every week, or possibly every day, for the rest of pregnancy is a milestone in a way... 4 weeks sounds much sooner than 5 weeks... "less than a month" sounds much sooner than "a little over a month." But obviously, it's still anybody's guess as to when Uno will make his debut.

I had my 36 week check-up on Wednesday. First they did all the normal appt. stuff. Turns out I have gained about 25 pounds, blood pressure is good, no real problems except being so damn uncomfortable all the time.

Then my doctor did an ultrasound to check on the baby. Surprisingly to me, he was in the head down position.* Also surprisingly, he is looking on track to be a normal-sized baby! Given that I am 5'10" and PJO is 6'2" we are expecting this kid to be large. That, and both of us and all of our siblings were relatively large babies. Don't get me wrong, Uno won't be SMALL. But our doctor estimated he will be about 7 1/2 pounds. (he's at 6lbs, 1oz now, according to the u/s). I know these could be way off, but it's still nice/weird to hear.

She took a culture for GBS and then we asked our burning questions relating to when we can expect to have this baby. There was no indication that he'll be early or late at this point. They don't check for dilation or effacement until weeks 37 or 38 because she says it's not really useful at this point and it just gives women false hopes. (they must have been thinking about me... I'm really glad they're not checking me yet).
Their policy is to not induce pre-due date unless there is a "medical" reason, but also not let me go past a week post-due date. When I told her that I start back at school January 12th, she looked at me like I was crazy, and then said that basically she would induce me at any time after my due date as long as I was at least 2 cm dilated. This was good news to hear... I really hope labor starts naturally and I don't need to complicate things by inducing. I would like to avoid a c-section if at all possible. But really, the sooner after Dec. 11th (my last final) this baby comes, the better.

So that's the update for now. Here's my "8 months pregnant" picture. As you can see, this belly is taking over my world. I can't get up from the couch or out of bed without doing some sort of rolling-maneuver. Even my maternity shirts are starting to show belly underneath. I basically can't wait to not be pregnant anymore, but I'm trying to be more patient.





* I could have sworn that I still feel him sitting sideways in my belly sometimes, but thinking about it later, maybe these are actually BH contractions and I just didn't realize it... Is that possible? It feels like two hard, round-ish things protruding from the side of my belly, but now that I think about it, maybe this is just the uterus becoming hard for a minute or two at a time? It doesn't hurt at all or even feel uncomfortable, so I just assumed it wasn't a BH contraction. The doctor said maybe it could be him shoving his butt out and arching his back, but that doesn't really explain why there are two things sticking out. Oh well, I was just happy and surprised that he was head down ... one less thing to worry about, for now at least.