Thirty-Five Weeks

Well, I'm very grateful I had the week off, and worried about going back to work tomorrow. I napped nearly every day this week. Mostly because I was just so exhausted I couldn't NOT nap. Yesterday I took my sister and nieces to a Broadway show matinee and I was so sleepy, missing nap time, that I felt sick. I'm debating bringing a pillow to work so I can lie down on an exam table at lunch time. Lying flat doesn't work so well for me anymore.

I didn't weigh myself this week since I was away from work, and I use the scale there. The belly seems to be growing nicely and my new fear is that I'm going to outgrow all my maternity shirts before this child arrives.

Oh, and the other fear is that... OMG in two and a half weeks, I am FULL TERM at 38 weeks! Yikes. (Yeah, that's not really a fear. Just a shocking revelation.)

My ultrasound and biophysical profile were totally normal. After all that bladder pressure the night before the ultrasound, I wasn't totally surprised to find that she had turned to head down. I was surprised, though, to feel relief about it. Of course, that night I felt lots of dancing on my cervix again so I'm pretty sure she flipped back to breech, the stinker. But then a day later she felt vertex again. So I reckon that means she still has plenty of room to move, and likely will stay head down in the end.

Just in case, I plan to practice some postures that are supposed to encourage head down positioning -- things that open up the hips. Even if she's head down now, hopefully that encourages her to descend further into the pelvis? I wonder if my labor last time, especially the pushing, would have been easier if she had been lower? Calliope was very, very high despite going to the chiropractor and acupuncturist multiple times before induction. Anyway, my chiro has a video and will give to me on Firday to try.

Tree Leaf's weight was estimated to be five pounds four ounces at 34 weeks four days, which puts her in the 43rd percentile. So neither starving nor suffering the ill effects of gestational diabetes. I'll take it! Of course, those numbers are notoriously unreliable and greatly overestimated Calliope's birth weight but the ballpark range seems perfect. Would put her at seven and a half to eight pounds on her due date by my calculations. I do expect her to be a bit bigger than her older sister (who was six pounds ten ounces at 41w3d), just since that seems to be the way with subsequent babies.

I'm trying to practice my Hypno.Babies but the instructor's voice is really annoying me. I'm not sure I can make it work for me. But I'm scared to not have a plan to rely on.