34 Weeks

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Week 34


How far along:
34 weeks. How ironic that baby is the size of a box of cookies, since my countertop is currently loaded up with boxes of cookies after a Girl Scout cookie haul! In other news, we learned in our baby book that the average baby at this age is about 5.5 lbs and 12 inches long. Lots of growing in the length department for this little one to catch up with where big brothers were length wise when they were born!

At my OB checkup this morning, baby still continues to measure exactly on track, and had a heart rate of 130bpm. See what I mean about the heart rate being all over the place!? My last appointment I think it was around 160bpm, and before that 140bpm. No consistency in the home stretch I guess! G happened to be with me for the appointment, and he was so concerned about everything happening, that he wouldn't even let me get my weight checked without being held, had to come to the bathroom with me, and literally climbed onto the exam table and sat down right on my face while my doctor was using the Doppler to check for heart tones. Standing on a chair holding my hand was not nearly close enough for this little mama's boy! Such a little mother hen!

Best moments so far:
G took notice of my stomach for the first time this past week, and when I explained to him there is a baby in there, he was oh so curious! He patted my tummy, and looked at me expectantly as if to say 'how can this be?'. I informed him he was going to be a Big Brother, and his face split into a wide grin. Oh so sweet. Hopefully he will be a great big brother when the time arrives, and understand that he won't be the baby of the house anymore! Wishful thinking no doubt!

C, meanwhile, has accepted and seems to be looking forward to the fact that a new baby will be joining our family around Easter. This last month or so he has been very curious about the baby, and is always asking questions about 'when will the baby come out?', 'will the baby pop out?', etc. C struggles with sharing my attention with G during the day when he is home and not in school, so I am thinking his transition to sharing even more of his 'mom time' once baby arrives may be a tough few weeks until we get into some sort of routine. Hopefully our visitors those first few weeks will make a point to single him out too, and not just focus all attention on the newest little one!

Maternity clothes:
Yes. Usually a mashup of maternity + non-maternity layering pieces.

Sleep: 
Not too bad. Starting to think I should go to be earlier though to take advantage of these last few weeks of uninterrupted sleep for the foreseeable future.

Miss Anything:
The occasional glass of wine. We've had a lot of cold weather and ice lately, and being cooped up inside all day long with the boys has been a true test of patience. It'd be great if I could unWINEd at the end of the day!

Baby Movement:
Yes. Somewhat slowed down during the day at least, but when baby is moving, my entire stomach moves. I think there has been lots of flipping around this week!

Cravings and Aversions:
Nothing in particular.

Queasy or sick:
Nope.

Symptoms: 
I've had occasional back pain when sitting/standing in my lower left back this past week. This is the same spot that plagued me earlier on, but T assures me it is just a muscle, and not a nerve getting pinched since I don't have any radiating pain or tingling to go along with it. Either way, it has been pretty uncomfortable at times.

Looking forward to:
I ordered a personalized baby blanket with baby's NAME printed on it this week...Eeek! There's no turning back now! It has a 3-4 week turnaround + shipping time, so prayers that this little one doesn't arrive before my hospital photo prop! My parents were asking over the weekend if we had a name picked out, and I got the all clear from Grandpa T to use our chosen name even if my brother and his wife end up using the same one...HA! Chances are that we will have a new niece or nephew before our littlest love arrives, so fingers are crossed we don't choose the same name! If we do...at least we live in different towns and have different last names! While we have had baby's first name picked out for a while, we have yet to make a final decision on a middle name. With G, we didn't decide until after he was born, so unless we really buckle down, we won't likely be monogramming anything with baby's initials! Speaking of monogramming with initials...G's nursery still has C's initials above the crib, so obviously this hasn't been a priority at our house! Whoops!

This week I reached out to our family photographer to set up a baby bundle photo package, and am now stressed about what everyone will wear for newborn family pictures. Obviously most of the pics will just be of the new baby, but I love the pics we have of the boys together from when G was born, and I have one of our entire family from when each of the boys was born hanging on the wall in our bedroom. Such a special time to remember, and I look forward to capturing this memory again with our newest little one.

On my mind:
T & I were talking this week, and I commented that we may only be three weeks away from adding a new little one to our family. C was born at 37 weeks, and G at 38 weeks, so it will be interesting to see when this little bundle will arrive. A friend of mine who has more than two kiddos told me that with each consecutive pregnancy, her babies were born closer and closer to her actual due date after having a couple of early arrivers, so who knows...maybe we'll make it to 40 weeks this time! What it definitely means, however, is that I need to start thinking about getting baby clothes washed up and a hospital bag ready...sooner rather than later just in case!

I mentioned one of my biggest concerns (making it to the hospital for delivery) to my doctor this morning at my OB appointment, and she commented that I need to make it at least two more weeks to be able to deliver locally. She also let me know that she has pretty much zero confidence that I would be able to make it to a bigger city (1.5hrs away assuming I left immediately) before baby came if I were to go into labor between now and then, so in other words, we'd basically just be 'up a creek' so to speak. Hey thanks for the vote of confidence! She also voiced a thought that I should maybe consider having someone else drive C to school/me to the hospital as we get closer to my due date so that I'm not that much further away in case I went into labor while on the opposite side of town, or worry about trying to drive myself there while being in active labor if T is at work. Each delivery is different, so we can't know for sure what to expect, but if history were to repeat itself, not making it to the hospital could be a very real possibility. I am hopeful that as long as my bag is packed, I will be as prepared as I possibly can be to get there in plenty of time! A feat that would certainly be easier to accomplish if my two little sidekicks were peacefully sleeping!

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