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Full term! Watchoutnow!

RIGHT ON. I’m 37 weeks! Full term! About 12 percent of babies are born prematurely in the U.S. each year. I’m glad we made it this far!

I could safely have this baby anytime between now and five weeks from now. Nice range, right?

I can’t remember if the midwives start to get nervous if you hit 41 weeks, or if they’ll let you go til 42 weeks before wanting to intervene. I’ll have to ask at my next appointment, but my gut feeling is I won’t go too far past 40 weeks, if I even make it to that point. Just a guess, but what do I know?

I could totally hack being pregnant for another month. I think. I’m still not uncomfortable — in fact, I’m more comfortable now than I was a few weeks ago, since his head has dropped lower and it’s easier to breathe (and it wasn’t that difficult to breathe before that). Putting on socks and shoes is a major challenge. I either have Shane help me or I just contort myself and go for gold.

I hope he lets me get over my cold first. I’ll need to be healthy and have my energy back. Sometimes I’ll sneeze, and he’ll jump. Lol.

When I was 32 weeks, I predicted that I’d at least hit 40 inches around and gain 26-27 pounds total. Well, I measured my circumference (is that even accurate?) and I’m 40 inches around! How much bigger will I get? Who knows. Baby is gaining about an ounce per day. That’s roughly a half of a pound per week for Baby alone.

On my main blog, I mentioned that I won a baby sling — a Baby K’Tan — in a blog giveaway. It arrived yesterday and I wore a teddy bear around the house in it for awhile. I love it! It’s ridiculously simple to figure out how to use. I’m not sure how it will feel with a person vs. a bear in it, but it has great support so I feel like it’ll work out well. I’ll keep ya posted.

We’re making progress on our baby to-do list. I bought a bunch of non-perishable groceries to have around for after the baby is born. Plus, I bought an obscene amount of snacks for us to munch on in the hospital.

I have a bunch of meals in the freezer and I’m going to add a few more this week. After that, I’ll save leftovers and add some convenience freezer foods.

Baby’s room is ready to go. I want to deep-clean the kitchen and bathrooms and do a little more to organize our bedroom. If I don’t get to those things, no worries! The grandmas are coming, and they can help

We’ll probably go ahead and throw things in our hospital bag tonight.

Oh man. This is getting really real now. I’m still partly in denial about this whole thing — like really? I’m having a baby (and not a basketball?). Baby is coming, and he’s coming soon. Watchoutnow!

From BabyCenter.com:

Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don’t be surprised if your baby’s hair isn’t the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

See what your baby looks like this week.

Meet & greet: My baby’s bedroom

I’ve finally got my little boy’s room situated! I thought I’d take some pictures and show you how we’re organizing everything to start out.

Here’s the view of the room from the door way. The bed in there is used as a guest bed.

We have a little cubby-style shelf in the corner. One drawer has diapers ready to go, along with some wipes and diaper cream. Another drawer has burp clothes, another has breastfeeding aids (nursing pads, lanolin) and some baby first-aid stuff. The last bin has hats and t-shirts.

You might see a cardboard box in one of the slots. That’s holding diapers from my diaper cake, and once I use those up, I’ll put something cuter in there.

The bed is on risers that we got from Ikea. The bed is high enough that a box of diapers will easily fit under it. We have several hundred diapers and wipes under the bed. The rest of our stash is under our bed in the other room.

We bought the bookshelf from Home Depot. I love the colorful covers of children’s books, so I wanted to have some facing out, rather than having their binding out. The blue thing hanging from it holds shoes and socks, bibs, and bags for diapers. The wastebasket below is for — you guessed it — icky diapers. I have an air-freshener disk for it and I have some baking soda on the bookshelf to sprinkle on top.

The closet is a bit smaller than I’d like, but it’s working for now. We have board games on the top shelf (nowhere else for them to go) and heavy baby blankets next to them, with just a little bit of space on either side for some small items.

The six-slot hanging thing came from Target. The hanging clothes are current sizes. In the slots: 1. Sleep sacks 2. Sleepers with feet 3. Clothes sizes 3-6 months 4. Towels, washcloths 5. Pants 6. Clothes sizes 6-9 months. I have them labeled with sticky notes so that when other people do the laundry, they’ll know where I want things to go.

His current clothing size will be hung up, ideally.

The wicker basket is for dirty laundry. There’s a zip mesh bag that I’ll use for socks. They are so tiny and are certain to get lost any other way. I’m storing clean socks in another zip mesh bag.

The cardboard box below is for outgrown maternity wear and baby clothes.

I have Christmas things in the bin below that. Nowhere else to put it.

I have two baskets under the crib. One basket is for receiving blankets. The other is to store mattress pads and sheets.

Our bed skirt, bumper pads and quilt (hanging on the wall behind the crib) was made by my grandma for my cousin’s daughter. She no longer needs it, so she kindly sent it to me to use.

I decided to put the bumper pads elsewhere in the room. Changing the sheets with the pads on … not easy. Not to mention, bumper pads are questionable in their safety, so I decided just not to worry about it. One pad fit perfectly along the window sill. The other is hanging over our cubby shelf to add a splash of color.

Visit The Natural Mommy for more “meet and greets!”

CPR class

On Saturday, Shane and I attended a 4.5-hour course on infant and child CPR and first aid. It cost $40 each, and I think it was worth it. Shane had previously been CPR-certified for adults, but hadn’t had training for infants and children. I’d never had hands-on training.

Our small class each had a child-sized and infant-sized manikin to rescue.

In the CPR portion of the class, we learned the technique and steps to follow. We also learned about AEDs and how they can help people over one year of age. Finally, we learned anti-choking techniques.

We took a short break for lunch and returned to learn more about first aid. Since there are so many things that can require first aid, you really can’t hope to cover all topics in the class. I don’t think I learned anything new here, but it was a good refresher.

I hope we’ll never have to use our CPR training, but it’s nice to know its there. We’ll be practicing on teddy bears periodically so we won’t forget what to do.

Next week, we’ll have a class on newborn care. I hope it’s beneficial!

Rush hour and home games

My biggest concern about going into labor isn’t the sensations I’ll experience. I’m not worried about that. No, no — my biggest concern is whether I’ll need to get to the hospital during rush hour. Or a Steelers or Pens game. Cuz that would stink.

You see, it’s maybe 15 minutes to the hospital on a typical weekday afternoon. In the middle of the night with no traffic, I’m guessing it would take 10 minutes without speeding.

But rush hour? Forget it. It could take 45 minutes to an hour, easily. I don’t have the patience for that. It would stress me out and maybe even slow down labor.

So I’m really hoping my labor is such that I don’t need to go anywhere during the hours of 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. or 4 to 7 p.m. during the week. Please? That’s only 25 percent of each weekday.

Also, I want to avoid going to the hospital before/after the Steelers’ home games on Dec. 7 and 28, and the Pens’ home games on Dec. 8, 11, 20, 23, 27, 30 and Jan. 3 and 6. The Pens games ought to be less trouble for us, but it will be harder for us to effectively detour around Heinz Field.

Wait a minute. I think I’m asking for a bit too much.

My baby is probably like, “Geez, lady! I can’t handle this pressure! First, you want me to come on a convenient day in December. I have no calendar, so good luck with that. Second, you want me to avoid rush hours and home games, too? And probably snow and ice storms? Sorry! I have no clock, calendar or Weather Channel. Good luck to us all!”

Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t be so picky. I’d just rather not have an extra-uncomfortable ride to the hospital. And I’d rather not deliver him in the car.

36-week appointment update

Fully clothed and wearing boots, I weighed in at 160.3 at my 36-week appointment on Thursday. Holy smokes. If you’re keeping score, I started out at 136, and lost a few pounds in my first weeks. Net gain is like 24 pounds, which is right on target.

BP is 120/80, yay.

I had my Group B Strep test today, and the results should be in by my appointment next week.

When midwife Tina measured my belly, she was perplexed. I was 32-33cm. Two weeks ago, I was 33 cm. In theory, I should have been 34-36 cm today. Because of this, she wanted to do an internal exam to gauge the position of the baby’s head.

Just as I had suspected, he’s dropped and fully engaged in my pelvis. She said he was at “zero station.”

That just means he’s found his way to the exit. It could be weeks yet before he decides to actually move out of his little home.

A station is measured from -3 to +3, (some OBs use a -5 to +5 scale). Basically, it relates to where the baby’s head is located. A -3 means the baby is floating around still and hasn’t engaged. A +3 means the baby is crowning and is almost out. I think.

My back sort of feels like it really needs to pop. Like there’s a buildup of pressure in the lower part of my spine, ya know? Maybe it’s because of the pressure of Baby’s head on me. Yah. That could be the reason. A small person is head-butting me in the uh, butt, after all.

I know it’s going to be a lot of work to move his head three measly centimeters. Whatever. We’re up for it!

So since he’s positioned pretty low, that could affect my belly’s size. I’ve gained a few pounds in the last two weeks, so that’s a good sign. If my belly is still on the small side next week, I might get another ultrasound.

I just wish they’d stop worrying about his size. There’s a lot of room for me to “hide” a baby, that’s all. He’s fine. I know this for a fact, y’all.

She said my cervix was softening, but it was sort of situated far back and she said it would be uncomfortable for me if she tried to check possible dilation. Thanks for sparing me that, midwife Tina! I’m glad I don’t know if/how much I’m dilated. It could still be weeks before anything happens, and whatever the result, it can’t predict when true labor will begin.