Tuesday, October 7, 2014

37+ weeks

How far along: 37 4/7 weeks

Picture taken at 37 1/7 weeks.

Symptoms: As of about a week ago I can't wear my wedding ring any more. As of a few days ago I don't have ankles anymore. I'm really hoping that I don't suddenly lose my neck or something. That would be disturbing (especially since we're having some "family pictures" taken on Wednesday).

Baby has dropped. My torso is so short that he's still way up in my ribs pretty often, but I can breathe a bit better. More on the dropping thing in a minute.

Contractions. My super regular Braxton Hicks have slowed down a bit, but a handful of times a day I'm having some real contractions also.

Nesting... see previous blog post.

I'm pretty hungry all the time but usually can't eat too much at once.

I have heartburn a lot but usually a Tums takes care of it.

I cannot get enough to drink. This has two "side-effects". 1) I am retaining water. 2) I have to get up to go to the bathroom 2-3 times a night now. Because I'm up so often at night my short-term and quick-recall memory is suffering a little bit, but oh well.

My joints are starting to loosen up a lot and my pelvis is definitely stretching out and shifting to get ready for this baby.

LOTS of acne... like way more than I've had this whole pregnancy so far. Luckily most of it is the really little stuff that's not super easy to see unless you're close up... at least that's what I'm telling myself because I'd really hate to look like a teenager going through puberty in our family pictures in a few days.

Aaaaand as usual, the sciatica. It's pretty painful and I'd say it trumps everything else going on right now lol.


Exercise and being healthy and all that: I'm still doing water aerobics twice a week. (It ends this week which is sad.) I'm trying to walk a little here and there but those efforts usually manifest themselves in the nesting housework I'm doing more often than going on walks. I walk to school once or twice a week for my meetings that I have to be there for, and I walk down to the football games at the stadium. I'm trying to eat healthy but I will also admit that I have nearly polished off a bag of candy corn in the past week and a half.


Movement: He's definitely cramped these days. That's for sure. He still tries to stretch and all that, but most of his movement is one of three things. 1) Shoving his feet into my ribs. 2) Sticking his elbows against my abs as hard as he can and dragging them around (it looks like a little cone sticks right out of my belly sometimes). 3) Pushing his head, uh, downward as hard as he can. Funny kid.


Size: He's pretty big and I'm thinking he's long... just sayin'. I'm pretty big too. Also just sayin'.


Clothes: Except for a few camisoles and garment tops that have stretched themselves extremely well this whole time, I'm in maternity clothes. I was trying to figure out what long pants to wear to the football game the other day (and also for our pictures this week) and I put on my old pants. They fit okay but there was no way on this planet that they were going to zip or anything obviously, and my belly's too big for my shirts to hide an open zipper anymore... sooooo I caved and bought a pair of maternity pants. People tell me I'll want to wear them afterwards too so I guess it's okay to buy them with only a few weeks left.


Names: No idea. We're going to commit to a list before we go to the hospital, but that's all we can promise lol.


Dr's visits: I'm doing weekly doctors visits as of this past Thursday. She was feeling my belly to check to make sure he was head down. She decided to check me, uh, another way to make sure... she reached up and went "oh!" and said "Um, he's definitely head down, and he's basically as low as he's going to get without being born." I'm dilated to about a 1 and I also have evidence that I'm effacing... so hopefully things will move along nicely over the next few weeks!

Our Dr is going to be out of town for a good week(+) for her kids' fall break... she gets back like 4 days before my due date... so suddenly instead of wishing that this kid would come soon I'm hoping he'll only come like 4 days early so our doctor will be here. :)


Miscellany: Two of my best friends from high school had babies within the last week. One of my best friends from grad school is having a baby Monday at the latest. So, I'm next, right? lol.


Story 1: I was trying to get some lotion out of a nearly-empty lotion bottle the other day. I was smashing the pump down over and over trying to get some to come up. Suddenly some spurted across the room onto me...except it landed below my belly button somewhere and I couldn't find it for the life of me. Bryan had to come help ha ha.


Story 2: The other night Bryan put his face down near my belly and was talking to the baby. The baby was seriously doing some P90X in there in response. It was hilarious even though it seriously hurt sometimes lol.



5 comments:

  1. I love hearing all of your stories and it sounds like things are moving along nicely :)

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  2. It's unreal to me that you're on the verge of motherhood. Doesn't seem so long ago your mom was having you... So excited for you two!

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  3. Aaaand, just in case you don't recognize the Kari...It's Hullinger... :)

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    1. I figured it was you. :) Good to hear from you!!!!

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