Week 35 - Shoot Me Now

As of today, I have four weeks and a day until my estimated due date. Which is absolutely crazy and more than a little scary. And right on cue to herald the end of my eighth month? Some serious Braxton-Hicks, which seem to be happen more often in the car and are more intense there. It seems to be a combination of being stressed (like when we're driving home at the end of the day) and having poor posture in general when we're in the car. By Friday they had gotten so bad that I went to bed and spent all afternoon and evening switching back and forth between my left and right side. (They got better eventually, but several times that night I was convinced that I would in fact go into labor in the next two weeks. More on that in a bit.)

By Saturday morning I wanted nothing to do with the bed, so I continued to take it easy by supervising in a comfy chair (lovingly provided by the Spanish Inquisition) while Andy did most of the work of cleaning our room. I think he would have mutinied if I hadn't also been set up at a table so I could sort through some of the crap that had accumulated all over the place. So now we have a clear floor and a clear desk, and even better? None of it was shoved in the closet. That would be the classic packrat coping technique, but we managed to find a home for everything or agreed to get rid of it. Goodwill is going to start recognizing our car and refuse to take our stuff.

Sunday was spent writing thank you notes for my first shower and getting taxes done. Woohoo, another refund. Not sure what we'll do with it this year, but last year it helped replace our roof. Maybe part of it will go towards some of the inevitable last minute "Oh crap, babies can't shop for themselves..." runs to Babies R Us for swings and diaper pails and the other things that we don't have yet but will be desperate for about 12 hours after bringing Brianna home.

In the midst of my impending doom of labor freakout over the weekend, I realized that while we do need some stuff still, a lot of them are gifts that just haven't arrived yet, and that by next weekend, we could theoretically be ready to bring home a baby. You know, as long as you look past the fact that we don't have diapers or a car seat. Or packed bags for going to the hospital.

Moodiness seems to be happening a lot lately. Last night I had round ligament pain from hell (quite literally - the devil showed up and made my uterus hurt, not such a nice guy that one) but didn't recognize it at first and called the midwives. I'm sure they think I'm a moron, and I went to today's appointment being that idiot who called over round ligament pain. Anywho, I was so overwhelmed and uncomfortable that I had a bit of a breakdown. Again. Poor Andy. All this on top of him having dental work and a headache yesterday. He's a real trooper, but we have finally decided that adventurous cooking (ie, let's make this up as we go along!) is out for the next several weeks. In fact, it might be out for a few months, because I don't think we feel like experimenting with a newborn on hand, unless we're feeling particularly crazy and so sleep deprived that it also sounds like a good idea to run around with our underwear on our heads. So, not likely.

Complaint #54,763 about pregnancy? I have to pee. All. The. Time. Middle of the night waddling to the bathroom is especially painful when your bladder is full and the hormones that loosen your pelvis are making it hard to stand up straight. It's gotten so bad that I'm starting to run out of toilet paper. Which means a trip to Costco needs to happen. However, that probably won't be happening for a couple days. Do you want to know why? Of course you do, this wouldn't be the TMI happy hour if I didn't tell you anything and everything about what's going on.

So at said appointment today, I got to hear the heartbeat as usual and measured rather large (39 weeks, but Brianna was sticking her butt out again so it's probably not that bad). Our midwife was a wee bit out of sorts because she had just had the pleasure of telling her previous (rather clueless) patient that she had a bulging abdomen because she was 20 weeks pregnant, not constipated. How anyone gets that far thinking they just need a good laxative, I don't know, but the midwife felt she had had her fair share of surprises today. She offered to check my cervix after doing the swab for Group B Strep, and after all the action my uterus has been getting, it sounded like a good idea to me. Good instincts on that one, because the surprises were not done for the day.

Y'all, I'm 4cm dilated already. 4 freaking centimeters! And 70% effaced to boot. I'm halfway through the easy-ish part of labor, and apparently those "fake" contractions were probably the real deal. If I get any regular contractions, I have to call the hospital even if they're several minutes apart. So I'm going to treat the next week like I'm on bedrest whenever possible. No Frisky fun-time. No standing over the stove cooking dinner. Still working, but not going back and forth between the adjacent buildings several times and staying off my feet. With my luck, the fire alarm will go off and I'll have to stand outside for awhile. And it will be raining.

Brianna is probably 7 pounds now, maybe 21 inches. We'll get a more definite answer when we go in for a yet another ultrasound, just to check her growth again since I measured so big. Right now it's just a waiting game as her lungs mature. Hopefully she'll stay tight for another week and continue to grow and be even healthier when she's born. It would be awesome to have a St. Patty's Day baby, or if she were born on the 21st (my grandma's birthday), that would be pretty cool too. With a full moon on the 19th, who knows what will happen. I'll try to update a little more often as things change through the week, so check here first if you're curious about our baby status.