37 Weeks...

Hooray! It's July! We made it! Baby can come anytime now, and I'll be happy...or he/she can hang out a while longer on the inside, and that will be OK, too. At least now I know that the birthday will be sometime in July, leaving the month of June for Josiah and giving The New Baby the honor of his/her own month of birth. :)

Every day, I think, "Maybe this is the day. Maybe July 1..or 2...or 3...or whatever...will be the day. This is a good day for a birthday!" And every evening as the hours run out before a new day begins, I think, "Well, I guess July 3 won't be the birthday after all." I do this every single day.

However, despite my eagerness to meet this new member of our family, I've settled back into a contented come-what-may kind of attitude. It was interesting to me to read back through the archives and see what kind of mood I had in the weeks leading up to Tobin's birth. This post showed me that five days before his birth, I was feeling similarly to how I do now: peaceful in spirit, patiently waiting, feeling fairly good physically, actually getting some things accomplished and feeling good about that. The previous week, I was not feeling so laid-back at the beginning of 2008 since I experienced both physical discomfort and mental impatience; and I've certainly had days like that during the past week or two. At the present time, thankfully, I feel like I'm in a win-win situation with the baby's birth being welcome at any point, but a lot of fun activities coming up that I can participate in if the baby stays put for a while. Plus, each day I have been able to make progress (sometimes small progress, but at least it's movement in the right direction) with various things that I wanted to finish up before the baby is born; and that's satisfying to see some accomplishment before the great upheaval of birth and a new person in our household!

I had an appointment on Wednesday with Donna, one of the midwives; and from here on, I will have an appointment every week. Here are a few things I noted from that appointment...

~ I happened to see, in the waiting room, one of the nurses who was working when I gave birth to Tobin...her name is Cindy, and I knew her from before his birth but had lost touch with her so was glad to reconnect...once again, we had lost touch since Tobin's birth; and once again, I was glad to reconnect...she happened to remember that I was 8 centimeters dilated when I arrived at the hospital in labor with Tobin; and although I thought that was wonderful, she said the nurses had to scramble a little to get everything ready in time...I didn't know that; I was too busy happily relaxing in the jacuzzi to pay attention to anyone else :)

~ my weight was 174 pounds, which is the heaviest I ever got before Josiah's birth...but that time, I gained 32 pounds to get to 174, and this time I've only gained 24 :)

~ the baby's heartbeat was 146, a little higher than it had been during the last few appointments (but still not in the high range)

~ my uterus measurement was 36

~ the Group B Strep test I had done at the previous appointment came back negative, like it has with all my pregnancies...I was grateful for that because I don't have to worry about getting a certain amount of antibiotics pumped into me through an IV before I give birth

~ Donna said this baby is a good size, probably already over 7 pounds...everything looks perfect, she said!

~ one thing that stood out to me is that Donna always speaks as if us having more children is a very real possibility, especially in regards to having a girl someday...I'm so used to people assuming that this must surely be our last baby that it's a little surprising (in a good, refreshing way) when someone assumes we'll have more! :) (disclaimer: I'm not saying we will have more, just that I'm not ready to shut the door on that possibility yet)

And now, two pictures to share...this makes up for the last pregnancy update that didn't have a picture included. I got up my courage and handed the camera off to Jeff at the lawn party last Friday so he could take a picture of me. Here I am at 36 weeks, 6 days...

...and then at 37 weeks, 4 days pregnant, in our own backyard.
A month or two after I give birth, when I'm still feeling really fat and flabby, I'll be able to look at these pictures and realize that I'm not so big after all. Hopefully the comparison will be encouraging to me. :)

It's been fun to read through the guesses about the baby's birth date and time! I think we've got the dates covered from July 7-12, and then July 14-15. Interesting that no one picked the 13th, or the 16th or later. It surely will be fun to see who wins! If you haven't already, you can go here and leave a comment with your guess to get into the contest. :)

OK, that's all I can think of to say about this particular week of pregnancy...until the middle of the night when I wake up with some burning thought that I should have included!

Signing off for tonight,

Mrs. Waddles or Mrs. Wobbles (either is appropriate because they're both true)