Week 37 - Full Term

The time has finally arrived -- I am full term now! She can arrive any day now! It's already May -- my due date month. It seems like yesterday that we just found out I was pregnant. Very exciting and a little scary! We can't wait though. Emile and I went to a street fair in "downtown" Wake Forest today. We both commented on how fun it's going to be to have children soon so we take them to those types of events. Soon!

I had my 36 week doctor's appointment on Tuesday (36w3d) with Dr. Gaines again (he's still not my favorite doctor at the practice). This time Emile came with! I had told him previously he didn't need to come after the 25 week or so appointment because all they were doing was weighing me, taking my blood pressure, measuring my belly and checking her with the doppler. This time, however, he did the Group B Strep test (I find out the results next week) and did my first internal exam. I wanted Emile there in case they told me I'd started to make progress. Not surprisingly, I haven't made any -- 0% effaced, 0 cm dilated! I had thought that the recent menstrual type cramps that had started might have been helping with progress so I was slightly disappointed to hear that wasn't the case -- although not surprised. On average, a first time pregnancy usually last till 41 weeks 1 day. If that turns out to be the case for me, I'll be having a June 1 baby! We'll soon find out!

Dr. Gaines also confirmed that she's still head down (good news) and estimated her to be about 5.5 lbs. According to what I've read, our baby is now surrounded by a peak volume of 1,000 mL of amniotic fluid which is approximately equal to 4 cups. From this point on this amount will decrease gradually. Her nervous system is maturing now, almost ready to be on her own. The lanugo on our baby's skin is wearing off. In addition, the cortisone that is being produced by her endocrine system will help her lungs to take over the job of delivering oxygen to her blood stream after birth. She's also started punching me in the hips daily now -- it doesn't really hurt but it definitely gets my attention! :)

The biggest change for me has been the added menstrual type cramp feelings I've been having frequently accompanied by increased Braxton Hicks contractions. The menstrual cramps have actually been waking me up at night. All this activity is supposed to be helping my uterus prepare for the big day! Dr. Gaines also stated the pelvic floor pain I've been having (still going on) is related to ligaments moving/stretching and the only thing I can do is to avoid activities that aggravate it -- which is walking! Pretty hard to avoid but this means I've cut out my walks around the neighborhood. I've also found that my pilates DVD workouts also aggravate it (as does rolling over while sleeping -- hard to avoid though) so I've switched now to only doing prenatal yoga.

This week we've also put the car seat in and I finished packing my bag except for the last minute items we'll need to throw in (I have a list on the refrigerator for that). We ordered our camcorder today. Emile and I have also narrowed down the names we like to the top three -- we'll be making our final decision when we meet her.