Forty Weeks!!!

I hit the due date!
I have completed 10 full months of pregnancy and August 30 is here. I can hardly believe it!
The next few days will be exciting I am sure, and for the first time I am really getting nervous about the labor part of things. This is a new thing, I used to worry about whether we'd have the house together, how we'd cope with a life outside of an infant, money, the baby's health and well-being, but never labor.
The house is in order for the most part, all clothing and newborn diapers, blankets, and sheets are washed and ready to go. Our hospital bag is packed, birth plan is written, relaxation CDs burned onto the laptop, camera batteries charged, birth tub reserved, doula on-call, snacks at the ready, baby is moving around well, and I suppose we are as ready as we're going to be!
And I'm getting nervous.
Rob will be great, Grace will be amazing. Can I do it?!

I sure hope so.

39 weeks

Anyone who has not seen me has been asking what I look like. Well, according to strangers who have to make comments in grocery stores I am "too small" and "there is no way" that I am expecting a baby in a matter of days. So I offer you photos, you can decide. It must be noted that at 6'1", I have more than adequate torso space for a full term, possibly large fetus to spread out and be comfortable.

Home Stretch

I am just a few hours from my last day of work for 12 weeks and 3 days from full term: 40 weeks. I can't believe how the time has flown! I am feeling great. I am not uncomfortable when awake almost ever. Sleeping is a bit more challenging but not nearly as painful as it was when my ribs still hurt. They magically ceased to hurt about 3 weeks ago. It was a great discovery, suddenly no pain! I think my ribs (alternating with my back for the first 2/3 of the time) ached for 16 straight weeks.
I survived, and know there are worse things. But I'm very happy to report weeks now of pain-free existence. The exchange was having to get up at night to use the bathroom. I had escaped that little annoyance for 36 or so weeks, now it is nightly. Sometimes it is twice nightly.
We've moved some of Rob's things to the basement for a pseudo office. Half our basement is finished and I use that term loosely. It is drywalled and carpeted, while the other half is cement walls on cement flooring. It was his idea to move a desk and bed down there, so we cleared out our boxes, steam cleaned the carpet, and put furniture in the room. It became a remarkably cozy little living space. Since it was hot, and since our air conditioning does not reach the second floor well, we started sleeping in the much cooler basement area. The temperature is wonderful, even keeping the AC on a relatively high temp kept the basement nice and cool. The down side is the urge to pee that hits me about 3 am every night now. Our only bathroom is on the second floor. I have to REALLY need to go before making the half asleep trek up two levels to the bathroom. What usually goes through my mind first is that I could hold it, sleep a while longer, and sometimes I do that. Then I wake 30 or so minutes later having to go even worse. Then I think of the unfinished half of the basement, just a few steps away and how there is a drain in the middle of the floor. It tempts me most nights. But I also go through the details in my head and squatting is not that easy anymore. Then there's no toilet paper, what if a cat follows me in? And really, I can just upstairs, right?

So I do. I have yet to wet the bed or succumb to the temptation of the drain. And yet I admit to pondering it.

37 Weeks and a Wedding

Lynn at full term!

August 8 has been this milestone anticipated since sometime in late January. That is around the time that my sister picked her wedding date and I got on a calendar for pregnancy and realized that I'd be 37 weeks that day. Thirty seven weeks is considered full term, or when the baby is about as developed as it can be. No medical professional will try to stop your labor after you hit this magical 37 week point. It was also the date I set for myself to have a glass of wine. I figured I'd be just ginormous and it would be scorching hot and I would have deserved a beverage after 9 months of no wine or beer. In the end, 37 weeks seemed to come quickly and I'm not that ginormous. The scorching hot prediction came true with a vengeance. As the wedding party posed for outdoor photos after the 1:30pm wedding, the heat index was 105 degrees. There was no shade in the park where the photos were taken. I participated in about 2/3 of the photo shoot, then hung it up and went back to the air conditioned bus to cool off.

The wedding was a lot of fun, it was a weekend of activities that mostly went off without a hitch except for my parents having a flat tire on the way to the reception and ending up there almost an hour late. Selfishly- and of course I'm writing selfishly, this is my blog after all- one of the best parts was the opportunity to swim in my sister's new inlaws' in ground pool. I submerged myself on Friday night before the wedding when guests at the post rehearsal dinner party jumped in and again on Sunday during the post-wedding brunch/pool party. It was heavenly. I stayed in the water for hours, and it was totally worth it even though for some odd reason I have become allergic to sunscreen (every brand I've tried, even the all natural stuff!!) and have itched myself into a rash for the rest of the week following my layering of the stuff on Sunday. It was worth it.

I did have my wine!