38 Weeks

Here is Theo sporting his BB-sized bump:

How Far Along: 38 weeks!

Size of Baby: My app says that the baby is the length of a leek. Ok, so I always thought a leek was an onion. And it is. A green onion. And to me, that sounds TINY. So even though baby girl is small, I really don’t enjoy comparing her to the size of a green onion right now. That was like week 13. Now she most certainly feels, looks and acts like a watermelon. So let’s just erase the whole leek thing, and compare her to our pets…ok?

BB weighs in at a grand 7 pounds…and baby girl should be right around there by now (although we all know she is a little smaller than that).

Moose weighs in at 13 pounds, so she is about half the size of him. I know who WON’T be cuddling with baby girl until she plumps up!

And of course, we had to add in Cyrus! He weighs in at a whopping 19 pounds…so there you have it! Also, a wiggly 20 pds is hard to hold up…

Total Weight Gain: A lot. And I haven’t weighed myself in the past week so I have no clue if it’s increased or not since the last horrible time I stepped onto the scale at the doctor’s office.

Stretch Marks: Not too bad. None on the belly.

Wedding Rings: Looks like I might make it the whole pregnancy without having to take them off. Still clear on the swelling. And today it feels like fall, so I can’t complain about the heat!

Maternity Clothes: At this point, we all know I’m in maternity clothes.

Gender: Our sweet, precious baby girl.

Movement: Yup, and pretty much every move hurts now. Some moves send me running for the bathroom as her head randomly jabs into my bladder, attempting to empty all it’s contents without permission. Some moves send me clutching my side, saying “owwww”, as she nails a rib or two. Some movements just feel like my uterus is about to pop when she stttttrrrecches all the way across the belly. She’s most certainly running out of room!

Sleep: Well, I’m starting to kiss it goodbye…and it makes me a little weepy that this is not the worst of sleep deprivation! I get up 2-3 times a night with that whole head-on-the-bladder thing, and although I have absolutely no trouble falling asleep, I’m really starting to feel uncomfortable no matter what position I’m in.

What I miss: My own body. It has most certainly been taken over.

Food Cravings: I keep thinking of a chocolate chip cookie dough custard thing from a local ice cream place. And cold stone. But I can resist. I think.

Food Aversions: None that are really standing out to me. Food is good. Food doesn’t fit too well into my stomach anymore. Food requires waaaay too much energy for me to make.

Symptoms: Um, pretty much everything mild that could possibly happen to a pregnant woman at 38 weeks. hunger, easily full, exhaustion, difficulty getting comfortable, contractions, emotions that range all across the spectrum…you get the picture!

Best Moment This Week: Finally feeling ready to welcome baby girl. Sorting out insurance and pediatricians!

Worst Moment This Week: So…to make a long story short, both Theo and I are still on our parent’s insurance, since neither of our jobs provide benefits. This has worked out grandly for us….until now. Now there is another little human entering our life that will not be on either of our insurance’s. Suddenly we realized, we need insurance for this child NOW, because if she is born and has a NICU stay, or any troubles…those will be some big out of pocket bills. Only one problem is that you can’t get insurance for a person who does not have a date of birth and a social security number. Ok, so that’s a problem. We managed to sort it out (last night!), so that is a huge praise…but it was still really stressful. Then, we realized that we are required to have a pediatrician signature BEFORE the birth, so that our doctors office knows that the baby will be taken care of immediately after birth. That’s all fine and dandy….except we don’t know what insurance baby girl will be on until we can apply, and that can’t happen until after she is born. Do you see where all my tears came from this week???

Haha! Praise God that he is faithful and brings so many patient and helpful people into our lives.

Another worst moment this week has been today. Yesterday, I went into “false” labor. Ugh, I hate that term, because I actually had contractions 5 minutes apart lasting a whole minute for 10 HOURS. Yes, 10 hours straight. That sounds like real labor to me. Theo and I did everything we were told to do- we walked, we rested, we ate, we walked, we timed the contractions, and we got excited. Around 11, after about 9 hours of this, we decided to try and get some sleep since it didn’t seem like I really needed any help from the hospital at that point. Well, I fell asleep…and then NOTHING. It just stopped. The end. No labor. No baby. Just a sleepless night, a really dissapointed Mama, and an exhausted body. I’m trying to see the positives, and hope that this helped move something along, and that it was good practice for me anyways. But just continuing on with a normal day when it was a very real possibility that she could have been here is hard and frustrating. Sigh…all in God’s timing.

Exercise This Week: Walking the dog every day still! It’s been great!

What I’m Looking Forward To: Have labor and delivery BEHIND me, instead of looming out in front of me, seeing my parents in just two weeks, and of course seeing Theo hold baby girl for the first time….eeek! I can’t wait!