The Waiting Game

The baby's hospital bag is packed; my bag is mostly packed. Car seat bases are installed. Laundry is done. Baby monitor is installed. Nursing clothes have been purchased & supplies have been ordered. Now we wait.

Today I officially began Maternity Leave; I saved 4 weeks of paid time off so I could have a nice, long "vacation" from November through January. I made a list of things to do while I wait and I've already begun whittling it down. I'm hoping the baby comes soon so I don't get too bored/anxious while I play the waiting game. Well okay, I admit that's not the *only* reason I hope the baby comes soon, but it's one of them!

Milly is enjoying having me home. Check her out - the picture of comfort:

38 Weeks

I've never had conversations with as many strangers as I have in the last couple of weeks. Everyone loves a pregnant woman! They all want to know when I'm due, many take a guess at whether it's a boy or a girl, and most are very generous with the compliments, which are always welcomed! :-)

We're at 38 weeks now and I'm still feeling good, despite the slightly swollen ankles and general lack of a good night's sleep. I'm ready to have this baby, but not overly ready to get the pregnancy over with. I am still awed when I feel her move inside my belly, unless of course she's punching me in the bladder (which has become a common, somewhat painful, and decidedly uncomfortable activity).

Here's the Baby Center update for this week:

Your baby has really plumped up. She weighs about 6.8 pounds and she's over 19 1/2 inches long (like a leek). She has a firm grasp, which you'll soon be able to test when you hold her hand for the first time! Her organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb.

Wondering what color your baby's eyes will be? You may not be able to tell right away. If she's born with brown eyes, they'll likely stay brown. If she's born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time she's 9 months old. That's because a child's irises (the colored part of the eye) may gain more pigment in the months after she's born, but they usually won't get "lighter" or more blue. (Green, hazel, and brown eyes have more pigment than gray or blue eyes.)

I keep hoping for a green-eyed baby, which is quite possible since Jeremy and I both have a green-eyed parent, but I'm betting she'll have brown eyes like we do.

I don't yet have a picture of myself to post for this week, but I'll try to get one tomorrow!

10/30 - Here's a picture from today!

Oh Happy Day!

I'm blog posting with a very big smile today... our baby's nursery is finished!! Hooray! Devon helped us pick up the glider yesterday and it fits beautifully in the corner where we wanted it to go, actually fitting even better than we thought it would. The color is perfect, it's incredibly comfortable, and we just love everything about it. We will spend many hours in that chair - feeding, soothing, reading, and rocking our little one to sleep. So many happy memories will be made there!

I'm also very pleased with the shelf we hung on the wall, although it came with sub par hardware that made it not-so-easy to hang, and there are now eight pretty sizable holes in the wall from it! But Jeremy did a good job as my handyman and the shelf looks great (and it covers up the extra holes).

I love it that some of the items in the room were picked out totally separately from each other (and by different people!), but complement each other so well. Jeremy and I chose the colors for the tree on the wall, and they happen to match *perfectly* with the pink and green in the baby invitation shower Emily picked out (which is framed and hanging on the wall), and they also match with the colors in the bird house that Jeanne brought us! Also, I had a painting of a monkey that I wanted to hang in the room, and then Joanne made us a blanket and pillow in a fleece fabric that had a monkey on it, and Cheryl gave us a sock monkey! Clearly it doesn't take much to make me happy right now, but this really does :-).

Enough of my babbling... here are some pictures of the much anticipated baby room:

Full Term

It feels good to be 37 weeks along now, officially “full term”!! Now we’re just waiting for the first signs of impending labor. The baby kept me awake from 2:30 – 5:00 this morning, moving around in a way that felt like she was repositioning herself. It feels like she is in a straight line from top to bottom now, rather than curled around my belly like she was before, and it also feels like she is facing my back now instead of being sideways. This afternoon I felt her hiccups much lower than they have been - another sign that she is moving lower in my belly to get ready for birth! We probably still have another couple of weeks, but it's so exciting to know how close we are to having this baby!!

We're picking up the nursery rocking/gliding/reclining/all-around-awesome chair on Saturday morning, and then the nursery will be complete! I'll post pictures of it when we're finished.

Here's Baby Center's blurb about the baby at 37 weeks:

Your baby is now considered "full term," even though your due date is three weeks away. If you go into labor now, his lungs will likely be mature enough to fully adjust to life outside the womb. (Some babies need a bit more time, though. So if you're planning to have a repeat c-section, for example, your practitioner will schedule it for no earlier than 39 weeks unless there's a medical reason to intervene earlier.)
Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

And here I am at 37 weeks!



Get the champagne (or sparkling cider) out, it's almost baby time!!!!

Update: After I posted this entry, the baby decided to resume her side-curled position... oh well!

Fasten your seatbelt and prepare for landing!

Here we are at 36 weeks, almost FULL TERM! At last week's doctor appointment, the baby was declared as being "in the landing position" - head down and ready to enter the world! Well maybe not quite "ready" to enter the world, but in the right position at least. This is very exciting! I can feel her squirming around from the top of my ribs all the way to below my belly button, so I know she's getting quite big in there. She is most definitely running out of space and sometimes feels as though she's trying to kick a hole through my side to escape.

Last weekend my sweet parents came over to deliver our *beautiful* nursery furniture and help us get the room set up. We found out today that our glider is now ready to pick up, so we'll have the nursery totally finished very soon! Here are some pictures of what we've accomplished so far:






No post would be complete without including the Baby Center weekly update:

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.)