37 Weeks Pregnant = FULL TERM!!

Best Moment of the week: Making it to the 37 week mark today! I never thought I could be so proud of myself for being so lazy, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm actually doing something very important by forcing myself to do nothing. When I started dilating and having contractions almost a month ago, I'd really prepared myself for having a preemie, and I was scared to death about it. But with each day that goes by, I'm grateful for Collin having that much more time to be prepared to face the world...whenever it is that he decides to come. Will we actually make it to September, after all?

My doctor's appointment this week was relatively uneventful since it's perfectly normal for a 37 week pregnant woman to be where I am right now. I have progressed since last week...I'm now 2 cm dilated and 75% effaced, and his head is really low (she said it's about -3 right now). I'm still measuring small (about 34 weeks instead of 37) but I'm guessing part of that has to do with how low he is right now and how early he "dropped." I haven't had trouble breathing at all with this pregnancy, while with Carter I was totally winded for the last few months because he was crowding my lungs. I had a sonogram to check my fluid levels, which were fine, and if I make it to next week, they will check his size again. She wasn't able to get any good pictures because he's face down, back out, but since that's where we want him to be she didn't encourage him to smile for the camera. :)

Contraction-wise, it was a slow week until yesterday. I had contractions all evening and thought for sure we were going to end up in the hospital, but once again, I went to sleep and they stopped. I was up to pee several times and at my 5:00 pee, they started up again and were coming every 10 minutes until after 6 when I fell back asleep. We made sure everything was packed and in the car when we came over to Pinellas for the day today (Glenn is working on the house, I'm over at my parents'), including installing Collin's carseat (!!) just in case we needed to head to the hospital today. There have been more contractions throughout the day today, but nothing regular or intense, so we're still in a holding pattern...which is FINE with us! Hang out, Collin!

We had a nice visit with some of our cousins today, Kathy and Jim Grady. Kathy wasn't able to make it over for my sprinkle next weekend so they came over for a visit this week instead. Since Carter usually has "stranger danger" I didn't have high hopes for him being terribly friendly, but he did GREAT with them! He was sweet and cheerful the whole time, no tears whatsoever, and I was so proud to show him off. He was of course terribly precocious and smart as ever. :)

Epiphany of the week: We took Carter to the "sibling class" at the hospital, and it didn't go terribly well! I came to the conclusion (after the fact, of course) that this class was meant more for the 4-6 year old siblings, and definitely not the under-2's! He was just all over the place and wasn't getting anything out of it (aside from distracting everyone else), so we stuck it out until they brought out the baby dolls since I thought he might enjoy that, but it didn't go so well. He immediately said "eye" and poked the baby in the eye!! Oh Carter, please don't do that to your little brother when you meet him! So I guess my epiphany was that Carter is probably not quite ready to be a big brother, and this very well could be a bit more difficult that I was even anticipating. But he could just as easily go the other way, so that's the outcome I'm hoping for!

Entertaining question/comment/story of the week: Here are a few of Carter's brilliant quotes of the week:

- We've been watching the Leapfrog "Letter Factory" DVD lately, which teaches kids the letters and sounds they make, and it's become a new favorite! Carter now (after watching it maybe 5 or so times) knows almost all of the letter sounds in addition to the word he associates with each one, so when you ask him, for example, what F says, he'll say "F-F-F-Flower!!" with such gusto. He really loves this stuff, and I love it, too!

- When Kathy and Kim were visiting today, the girls were sitting in the living room and the guys were sitting in the dining room (as usually happens) and Carter played in with us for a little while then ventured out to the dining room where he "sat with the guys." Too cute!

- After they left, my dad said he was surprised how well Carter did with Kathy and Jim. I said "Me too!" and Carter chimed in with "Me three!"

Obsessions: What day will Collin's birthday be??

What I am most looking forward to this week: We've actually made plans to see some friends this week, which should be nice, assuming I make it that far! We'll hopefully get to have lunch with my friend Kara, a visit with my friend Meg and her son Hunter, and a visit from my friend Kim, her son Nathan and her new baby girl Caitlin...Collin's future girlfriend! But who knows!

What I miss the most: Still hurting, hurting, hurting. But I know that as crappy as my sleep is right now, it's about to get worse, so I'll take it while I can! :)

Symptoms: 2 cm, 75% effaced, head is very low.

Milestones:

Your baby is now considered full term, even though your due date is still three weeks away. If you go into labor now, his lungs will likely be mature enough to fully adjust to life outside the womb. He 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.

Weight: 158

36 Weeks Pregnant

Best Moment of the week: Amazing how even when I'm keeping the couch warm, I didn't have time to blog last weekend. Or maybe it's just because I've been too busy holding my breath! It's amazing how quickly the weeks are flying by, even with nothing going on. I thought they would start to drag toward the end, but thankfully that's not the case.

Highlights over the past two weeks include my first baby sprinkle with my wonderful moms' group, Modern Moms of Tampa. I was an hour late for it because my doctor's appointment took forever (see below) but the ladies held out in the HOT park until I got there and it was so nice. We got all kinds of goodies including lots of diapers, wipes, bibs, and even a few handmade goodies...a cross-stitched bib and a crocheted hat. So sweet! I'm so lucky to have such a great group of moms as a support system. Now the question is, will I make it to my other sprinkle on August 28th?? Or will Collin be joining us?

Hmm, what else? Our house permit finally was approved and there has been plenty of work (both before and after permit, actually) going on. The new house is still a complete disaster, but at least it's moving in the right direction. Glenn had already done a lot of gutting (everything out of the kitchen and ripped apart the back room, which was a sunroom that had not been converted properly from a porch and needed a lot of work). The walls that needed framing should be finished today, and the plumber and electrician will hopefully start working tomorrow along with the new windows and doors going in. My dad fixed some of the plumbing in our shower, and Glenn put in our pretty new bathroom vanity. Glenn and our friend Dan wired the house for phone/cable/internet yesterday and Dan was pressure washing the outside of the house today so it can be repainted. There's still a lot to be done, and realistically, it will still be a couple more months until we can move in to a finished house, but we're getting there. Still to come: electrician, plumber, insulation, drywall, new cabinets (purchased from IKEA this week!) going into the kitchen (then it takes 3 weeks to get a countertop fabricated, sheesh!), painting inside and out, new carpet in the bedrooms and our pretty new faux-wood vinyl plank floor in the rest of the house, tile in the back room, then baseboards and trim work in the whole house. And then moving out of our house and into the new one. Phew! And guess who can't do anything to help?? Oh yeah, that would be me!!

I had two doctor's appointments since my last post. One was the day of my sprinkle, and I had dilated to 1-2 cm, still 50% effaced, and he was measuring small, so I had a sonogram. It was nice to see the little guy...he looks totally smooshed in there, though! He's measuring at the 19th percentile (10th percentile is when they would worry) and they guessed his weight was about 4 lbs 11 oz as of 8/5. At the appointment this week, I hadn't changed too much, which is good, and his heart rate was up high in the 170's (I think it was because his big brother was SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER when the doctor came in to see his mama) but it went back down to his baseline in the 150's after my exam. Dr. Reiss said it's good that his heart rate was active because it shows that he is doing well and my placenta is still working.

On the not-so-good front, I had another labor scare on Monday of this week. I started having contractions in the morning, and while they never developed a consistent pattern, they lasted ALL DAY LONG, anywhere from 4 minutes to 30 minutes apart, over and over again. I was very uncomfortable. :( Thankfully my mom was there, and while I didn't tell her this was going on until later in the day because I didn't want her to worry, if I had I actually gone into labor, she was there to help, and she stayed late to help with Carter until Glenn got home. I called my doctor's office right before they closed at 5, and they thought I may likely have to go into the hospital, and since I was past the 35 week mark, they probably wouldn't have done too much to stop the labor. (EEEEK!) They told me to drink a lot of water over the next hour, and if I had 4 or more contractions over the course of that hour, to call back and talk to the on-call doctor (Dr. Dill) and see what she thought. Of course I did, so I talked to her (after making sure everything was packed and ready to go and that Glenn was on his way home to drive me) and she said to just wait it out. If they developed more of a pattern (closer to 5 minutes apart for an hour, and more painful) then I should call back/come in, but otherwise just wait it out. So that was a relief. I still thought for sure I would go into labor that night and I was totally emotional when I was getting Carter to bed that night. (Yes, crazy pregnant woman, party of one) The contractions kept going until I fell asleep, but in the morning, they had stopped. Phew!

Other than that, it's been pretty quiet around here. My mom has been over at our house a lot, and we've been over at my parents' house, too, on days that Glenn is working on the house, since I have to be "babysat." So we haven't had much of a social life lately or seen much daylight. Carter and I have been taking daily naps together, which is heavenly. I usually work through his naps, but it's been nice to just conk out with him and get some rest. It's been miserably hot and there has been a ton of rain, so if we're going to be stuck inside, now is the time for it!

Epiphany of the week: I might just make it to my due date...maybe.

Entertaining question/comment/story of the week: Here are a few of Carter's brilliant quotes of the week:

- He climbed into his high chair while we were making lunch in the kitchen and called out, "Mama, Cee Cee, where are you guys?"

- He now knows a word for each letter of the alphabet...A is for apple, B is for baby, C is for Carter and Collin and Cee Cee, etc. Today we saw a Circle K sign and he said "K is for kite!" He loves it when he recognizes letters, numbers and shapes out in the world.

- He brought out some letters to me and Glenn last night and said "Let's build a word!" (We've been watching a lot of a show called Word World and that's from a song they sing.) We built L-I-P and then he ran around saying "Carter built a lip!" And then we proceeded to build a lot more words with a lot more letters. So much fun!

Obsessions: Making it to 36 weeks, hooray! Now every day when I wake up I wonder, "Will this be Collin's birthday?"

What I am most looking forward to this week: I signed Carter up for a big brother class on Thursday. Assuming I make it that far, it should be fun! (And will give us an idea of how he'll do at the hospital, yikes!) Then I have another doctor's appointment on Friday. At this point, I think I'm most looking forward to meeting my little guy! Though he can wait at least one more week until he's full-term.

What I miss the most: Not hurting...the aches and pains are really getting to me, especially at night.

Symptoms: 1-2 cm dilated and a bit more than 50% effaced with his head "very low." It was difficult for her to check my cervix this week because she had to go around his head to get to it. If that sounds uncomfortable, it's because it was!

Milestones:

Your baby is gaining about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds (Collin is probably a bit smaller than this) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. He's shedding most of the downy hair that covered his body, as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that protected his skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Next week, your baby will be considered full-term. (WOO HOO!)

Weight: 156.5

34 Weeks Pregnant

Best Moment of the week: Hmmm...I won't say this week has sucked completely because I am grateful for every day that I keep my little Collin in my belly, but it has certainly been a trying week. After being told I needed to take it easy at my last doctor's appointment, I cleared my calendar quite a bit. We still did manage to get in a fun playdate with my moms' group, where we got all of the current preggos together for a picture and dished on being pregnant while the kiddos played nicely. (I LOVE Carter's new-found independence!)

Thursday I had another doctor's appointment and while again, she wasn't planning on checking me, I made her check me, and then I watched her face grow concerned when she realized that my cervix had effaced 50% over the course of one week, and his head (previously breech) was already very low. While the word bedrest was never spoken, she told me I needed to take it very, very easy. Sit/lie down as much as possible, get as much help as I can. If I go into labor over the next two weeks (which she implied was quite possible), I will go to the hospital and they will attempt to stop the contractions until I get to 36 weeks at which point I'm fair game. Yikes. So while I was planning on having a September baby, it's now very likely that I will have an August baby.

So we decided that I need to be supervised at all times in case I go into labor and need someone to take me to the hospital. When Glenn went to work on the house this weekend, Carter and I went to my parents' house. We stayed pretty low key on Saturday, but decided to venture out a bit. We went to our favorite baby consignment shop, Stellie Bellies, then went to Lowes to pick up some paint samples and quote out carpet for the new house and took them down to Glenn. Later, my dad and I went back to Lowes to pick something up for Glenn, then went down to the house again, where I painted the samples on the wall. NOT a crazy, strenuous day by any means. But my body was yelling at me by the time we got back to my parents' house, and as we were driving home that night, I started having contractions. They weren't crazy intense by any means, but soon they formed a pattern and were coming every 10 minutes and lasting about 3:30 each. (Yes, I found an app for my iPhone to time contractions!) We got home and I laid down on the couch to try and get them under control, but they didn't stop. So I called my doctor's office and left a message for the on-call doctor, then went to take a warm bath since that was recommended by the midwife I saw this week, and thankfully that helped. By the time my doctor called back (and was not terribly friendly after being disturbed at 8:00 on a Saturday night), the last contraction had taken 12 minutes to come instead of 10 and she told me that as long as they didn't get any more intense or closer together, to just keep relaxing, but if anything changed, I would need to come in. Thankfully that was the last contraction I had that night. But it was a huge wake-up call for me. If I don't take it EASY-easy (not even just kind of easy), Collin very well may come weeks before he's supposed to.

Epiphany of the week: I am not in control. All I can do is behave myself as best I can and hope that's enough.

Entertaining question/comment/story of the week: Here are a few of Carter's brilliant quotes of the week:

"Mama has glasses. Cee Cee has glasses, too!"

He actually sang the whole ABC Song, and at the end he sings "Next time won't you sing with me, yaaaaaaaay!!!" (Since I cheer for him every time he sings it...now he cheers for himself, too!)

Obsessions: Keeping Collin in my belly!

What I am most looking forward to this week: Hopefully I will make it to my baby sprinkle on Friday. I have a doctor's appointment first, so hopefully I will make it that long!

What I miss the most: My chance of a September delivery.

Symptoms: Still 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced with his head "very low." I am now conscious of my cervix and just feel progress going on down there. Which would normally be exciting, but I would really like it to just chill out!

Milestones:

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. His fat layers – which he'll need to regulate his body temperature once he's born – are filling him out, making him rounder. His skin is also smoother than ever. His central nervous system is maturing and his lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies. (GOOD TO KNOW!!)

Weight: 154

P.S. This actually happened this week, not during week 34, but I don't think we'll be moving until after Collin gets here. Our renters are getting antsy and since it's not looking like we'll be able to move in the 2 weeks we promised them, I think they're going to find another place. This is one part sad news, because I would rather have friends living here than strangers, but it does take a lot of pressure off of us, so I'm going to think of it as a good thing. There is too much going on with my crazy body to deal with trying to move into a construction zone right now! :)