Archive for the ‘week by week’ tag
Pregnancy: Week 42
…and I think baby will be here soon.
Just snapped a 42 week belly pic. Not the greatest quality, but that's what you get at 4 am between contractions.
Yesterday, starting around 3:30 am – 3-5 contractions per hour all day. Lots of show.
VERY busy day – had company in the morning, went out to lunch, had NST, then went shopping at mall with Scott to get a few school clothes. THEN, omg, purged and sorted HM and Mir's clothes. I don't know why I finally got around to this chore I've been procrastinating on for months, but hurrah, it's done.
Had a yummy dinner (thanks to Scott's mama!) Watched TV for awhile in the evening while sitting on birth ball. Contractions starting coming more regularly, somewhat more intense – about 10 minutes apart.
Had a glass of wine, went to bed at 11 am hoping to catch a few hours of sleep.
Contractions woke me up at 1 am. Continuing show. Between 1-3 am they went from about 8-10 min apart to about 5 min apart. Tried to go back to sleep. Too much discomfort. Got up, got some stuff out of freezer (vegetable soup for crock pot, banana bread), started a load of kid laundry left over from yesterday's project. Started typing this post between contractions and timing them:
Time Duration Frequency
03:24:56 am 03:25:57 am 1 mins, 1 secs 3 mins, 40 secs
03:21:14 am 03:22:05 am 50 secs 3 mins, 55 secs
03:17:19 am 03:18:20 am 1 mins, 0 secs 3 mins, 33 secs
03:13:45 am 03:14:33 am 47 secs
They have spaced out a bit again since that bout, but damn they are even more uncomfortable. I'd like to try to get a little more sleep, but I fear this is just gonna be a long, tiring day. Hopefully there is a babe in arms somewhere along the way…
Pregnancy: Week 41
Last week at this time, I thought there was a very good chance that I'd be holding my baby and doing the one-handed typing thing by THIS week at this time.
No such luck. On the labor/birth front, I have absolutely nothing to report.
This boy, he sure is getting strong! Even though his activity is becoming somewhat constrained in there, sometimes his movements are so strong that I'm startled by his painful wallops.
Scott's mama gets in today for her extended visit. (It's also her birthday today and everyone here was kind of wondering if Jake would be born today, too. Not looking good.) After my groceries are delivered (have I ever mentioned that Safeway delivers here? Life saver!!), I'm going to make some black bottom cupcakes to celebrate and we have birthday dinner plans early this evening, before settling down and calling it an early night with school starting tomorrow.
I don't think at ALL that I've subconsciously been holding Jake in or anything – in fact, his birth anytime in the past two weeks would have been LOADS more convenient on various levels. However, now that we're about to get back into the school swing, it's a big relief to me that Karen will be here to help with the kids during labor/birth and those earliest newborn days.
So in terms of readiness? I'm ready. R E A D Y. However, I will be MOST ready after the girls have their first successful day of school behind them. To that end, I anticipate labor will probably start late Monday, at the earliest. If it gets much later than that, it gets a little rougher. I have a midwife appointment scheduled for Wednesday and I will probably instigate some mild, home-induction techniques (sweeping membranes, homeopathics, maybe cohoshes) to try and jumpstart this thing if I'm still pregnant at that time. Otherwise I fear I'm facing a lot more pressure from my doctor as I approach 42 weeks. By the way, have I mentioned that my doctor is 36 weeks pregnant? Eek.
Pregnancy: 40w5d
Nope, no baby yet!
But:
I did (finally) start having spans of contractions last night. I was soooo tired that I was glad when they spaced out so I could sleep. I needed the sleep badly.
I don't think it will be today, but I'm starting to feel (FINALLY) like there is hope that I WILL eventually give birth glimmering on the horizon.
Full moon coming up! Maybe that will do it. (I've been saying all along he will come on July 30 because that's the first day of school, and I can't imagine a date much more inconvenient LOL.)
I had a midwife appointment last night. Almost caved and had a cervix check, but I just know from past experience that whatever she tells me will just cause unproductive angst anyway, so what's the point. She was funny, she said, most likely with the BH contractions you've been having, it's going to be "softening, 1-2 cm dilated." Yeah. I don't need to have that confirmed. (And if, somehow, I'm 5 cm dilated, I would just be thinking whoa, any day now! And it could STILL be the middle of next week before labor actually starts…)
She also mentioned that she heard a new old wives tale the other day. I'd never heard this one either. Apparently a client of hers who is a Bradley instructor said that if the baby hasn't had the hiccups for three days, birth is imminent. Huh.
I only bring this up because I think it's been a few days since I noticed Jake having any hiccups. I even noticed it actually – thinking that was odd. Hmmm. 
Pregnancy: Week 40
Happy due date to me!
No signs of nuthin', so I'm pretty sure it won't be today. That's okay – after tomorrow Jake will be my little lion baby. 
For now at least I have Harry Potter. And I think we're going to pick up a great big giant jigsaw puzzle today – it sounds like just the kind of mindless distraction I could use to keep myself sane in this limbo land.
Pregnancy: 39 weeks belly photo
Lookie here, Jake babey, I can just tell you have your heart set on coming in like a lion (July 23+), but Cancer has been good to me – I'm sure it would be a perfectly acceptable sun sign for you as well. You can come on outta there any day now, sweet baby.
Pregnancy: Week 39
"Seven days to go." But of course it's more likely to be closer to 14 days. Heaven forbid even 21+ still.
Anyway, I had a TERRIBLE day yesterday – very sleep deprived and lots more increasingly crampy and frequent contractions. But today so far I feel GREAT. I woke up the usual 3-4 times last night, but had NO problem falling back asleep, so I'm caught up on sleep for the first time in perhaps a week. Now that feels wonderful. Generally I feel as energetic as anyone could possibly feel at 39 weeks.
So today would be a good day to have a baby. 
I think I might be feeling TOO good for it to be today, though.
Also, Scott had a chat with Jakey last night and says Jake told him he's coming out on July 18. 
Hey, that would be a good day, too – in fact, this would be a particularly convenient week, since the big girls start school two weeks from tomorrow. But we'll see.
Pregnancy: Week 38
Some pregnancy notes:
- Sporadic contractions started on Saturday – they're not at all intense nor frequent yet.
- Lots of cervix twinges. I can tell he's settling down lower. I think that started happening on Saturday, too.
- Measured 39 cm at today's OB appointment. Doctor and others say he's dropped
- I'm tired…
- …but otherwise still feeling pretty fabulous. I think the boy is VERY comfy in there and wants to nestle in for a week or four more
Unrelated:
- My girls all had their dentist appointments today – no cavities; hooray!
Pregnancy: Week 37
37 weeks today – officially full term by all standards! Woo! All my girlies seem to be getting quite excited to meet Jake as the big day gets ever closer.
This should be such a fun week. I should have plenty of distraction to keep my mind off whether labor is imminent or not (and it's so totally NOT! Typically my babies cook until 40+ weeks).
So we've got the holiday (and my 39th birthday) on July 4. We're skipping the fireworks this year, though. It's supposed to be hotter than hades (114F) and I just can't see getting comfortable enough to sit through that, not to mention that I'm not able to stay up that late these days – bedtime is usually before 9:30 most nights.
July 6 is our wedding anniversary. We have a plans to dine at a super fancy restaurant – yum. I have no IDEA what I will wear!
Generally, I'm feeling pretty darn good. I have some complaints, but I'm amazed that I don't have more. No swelling yet, for example! I did take a nasty little fall the day of the A-1 fiasco. I was preparing lunch and getting a sodas out of the pantry to put in the fridge. When I did that I knocked another one over. It popped a small leak and started spraying everywhere.
I had three soda cans cradled in one arm and grabbed the spraying one and ran (RAN! What was I thinking??) across the kitchen to put it in the sink. Of course I slipped in the wetness from the spraying can (all the sodas went flying, but none of those exploded at least) and I fell – quite hard – on my butt. Ouch ouch ouch.
I was a little worried (immediately started praying that jolt wasn't enough to in anyway detach any part of placenta), but all was okay – mostly I just gave myself a big fright. And I realized how unwieldy and vulnerable to injury I am right now. So glad there were no witnesses. That must have been quite a sight.
My pubic bone seriously hurt for a couple days. I think I knocked myself right into the land of SPD. I was having some symphysis pubis tenderness before, but it ratcheted up 100x after that fall. Sigh. If that's the worst that comes from that little spill, however, I consider myself very fortunate!
Pregnancy: Week 36 (Ouch!)
As of tomorrow, I officially qualify with my midwives for homebirth. I'm truly in the homestretch now! Scott is cute – he's starting to react with concern to all my groans and exclamations. And of course I'm just moaning and groaning in discomfort – oh yes, there's lots of that. By the time an actual labor pain DOES strike (weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks from now) he'll no doubt be all nonchalant because I cried "Wolf!" for so long. ;-D
My upper abdomen is very tender these days. I can't tell if it's my uterus that's sore. Maybe it's my ab muscles… ? Separating? It's very frustrating. Even sitting down isn't enough to relieve the discomfort. Lying down with lots of pillow support is really the only comfortable position. Yeah, like I can do THAT all day.
Today I caved in and bought a maternity belt.That does seem to help a little bit. (Though when I took it off, WHOOSH, there was suddenly all this baby weight on my bladder again! That cracked me up.) Anyway, we'll see how well it works over the next several days.
Floating in the pool, though, that's the only place I feel good. I was in there for ages this evening. Lovely. Just wonderful.
I also got a copy of Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery today. I've really been looking forward to reading this book for all the positive labor/birth affirmation if offers. The perfect read as my pregnancy winds down to the big day. 
Mom to 4 kids and 2 stepkids, I work at home in the heart of the chaos. Founder and executive editor of SheKnows.com and various other sites. Homeschooling. Knitter. Family chef. Gadget geek. Wordphreak. LAZY BLOGGER. 