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Week 35
Milestones: Baby is about 5lbs right now, and about 15" CRL, so he is taking up a lot of space in the uterus and getting more cramped now! He has regular and noticeable patterns of sleeping and waking. My Journal: November went by so quickly that I am just in shock that it is the last day of the month today! Nor can I believe that my "little girl" is 6 years old now! She has been acting so mature these days, even with some of her little expressions ("Okay, first of all..."), and she looked so grown-up in the 6-year-old portrait we had done at Sears on the weekend (her new haircut is very stylish, too!). Harmony's birthday parties last weekend went very well... Although I didn't get a nap in on either day, I still managed a handful of 6-year-olds on Saturday and a handful of family members on Sunday without too much trouble. I'm glad Paul was there to help out a lot though, especially with those rambunctious kids! It's hard to explain to Harmony how tired I've been getting these days, but when we blew up her birthday balloons, I tried to show her a balloon approximately the size of my uterus and asked her how comfy she thought that would feel inside my body! She agreed with me that it didn't look like an easy size to accomodate in a belly. So even though we were being a little silly about it, I think she understands that pregnancy isn't just about waiting around for a baby to arrive - there are a lot of physical and other changes as well. We've also talked about what will be the same and what will be different about our family when the baby comes, and cleared up some misconceptions! I tried to reinforce that a lot of things will still be "normal" and will just have Avery added on into our family life. We will still sit around the table and have dinner together, but maybe Avery will sit in the little bouncy chair on the floor beside us (or maybe the parents will have to be up and down a lot if he is fussy!). She will still have her bath every night, but maybe Avery will be bathed in the little tub on the counter. At the same time, we've been honest about some of the things that might not be so normal - she might wake up at night to hear the baby crying, but needs to trust that Mom and Dad are close by and are giving him what he needs. She tried to say that she would get up in the night if he was crying to come and help, but we let her know that she should save that helping for daytime! I can't wait to see the kind of big sister she will be, I know she is already so attached to Avery already and is excited to meet him. She is also a little worried about him too, though, and I'm glad she is talking to us openly about that. The other night she was crying because she was really worried that Avery would die, just like our 3 other babies have. It just broke my heart to think about her worrying about that, but of course I can't say that I don't have the same fears sometimes! So I just reassured her the best I could that Avery was so big and healthy and that even if he was born now, he would survive, whereas the other babies were much too small. I think sometimes Harmony feels the same way we do as adults - we just want that baby here, in our arms, safe and sound, so that we don't have to worry anymore about losing any more babies. We have been through so much as a family that we just want to start building happy memories with the new baby we'll be welcoming to our little family! I tell Avery often how lucky he is to be coming into our family, with such a caring big sister and such a wonderfully nurturing father and a nice cosy home. And of course I tell Harmony the same thing - that Avery will be so lucky to have such a great big sister. The other day, she was helping me put away some of his clothes, and was asking "Will I be able to hold him?" and was really thrilled when I said yes, of course she could! Another cute moment was when I visited my neighbour and we let the kids play together a bit while we chatted. Harmony asked Rowan if it was fun having a little brother, and Rowan said yes, it was. And then Harmony asked "Well, is it fun when he cries though?" and Rowan had to admit that no, that part wasn't very fun! So she is very curious about how this whole "big sister" thing works, but I think she is also really proud and happy to be in that role. Meanwhile, Paul and I were really proud and happy to show off Avery's finished nursery on Sunday when family was visiting! Everything is all set up now and looks so beautiful ( click here for pictures!). Every time I go into that room, it feels like Christmas! It's like seeing all the presents wrapped up under the tree and knowing that you'll soon be able to open them and find out what's inside. All Avery's little clothes are ready, and I am trying to picture what he will look like in them... And I'm trying to imagine what he'll look like sleeping in his crib, how he'll react to the musical crib toy with sounds and lights while I'm changing his diaper, what he'll feel like all bundled up in his receiving blankets, what he'll smell like getting dressed after a fresh bathing. And even though I've been a mommy to a newborn baby before, I haven't been a mommy to this particular newborn baby before, so I do find that it's actually hard to really fully understand and picture what life will be like after Avery is here! I think I've poured over Harmony's baby scrapbook at least a dozen times in the past few months, trying to mesh what that experience was like with what I think this experience will be like. And even so, I don't feel like I "know" what it will be like by any means! After all, I still have no idea what my little son even looks like - we all think he'll have black hair like Daddy and maybe a bit of my red, and brown eyes like both of us (but hazel like mine or golden brown like Paul's?), and that his features will look a lot like Paul's. But we could be wrong! And we suspect he will be a really big baby, but if he comes even earlier than we suspect, he may still be quite tiny. So for right now, we are just enjoying all the wonder and anticipation of waiting to meet our little guy! Test Results/Ultrasounds/Appointments: My 34-week appointment went well. My blood pressure was fine, and Avery actually slept through all the activity of my settling in, so his heart rate was closer to 150 than to the usual 160 (usually he is awake when they check). It was also much easier to find this week! I told the nurse he was still head-down and she found the heartbeat right away. Paul came with me, so I was glad he got to hear the sound of the heartbeat again too. Now I only have 3 more appointments to go (and perhaps not even!). Physical: There have been lots of neat physical changes happening this week, which is really started to bring the awareness that this baby is getting ready to come soon, and my body knows it! I actually think the baby might have started to "drop", and my OB said his head did feel a little bit lower than she remembers from my last check up at 32 weeks. I have felt some really strange sensations in the past couple days, like a sharp pain and pressure all of a sudden - near my perineal floor, but a bit higher up (so maybe pressure on my cervix?). Paul says my belly does like a little lower as well, so who knows! I dropped earlier than this with Harmony (and dropped more completely, like all of a sudden, she was very low!), but it's normal with subsequent pregnancies to drop a little later, and sometimes not even until labour. I am happy either way - it's a trade off between having increased lung capacity again at the expense of a little more waddling, more pressure, more pinching of the nerves in my legs, etc! Whether Avery has dropped a little or not, he certainly has been active lately! and doing lots of wiggling and stretching. I've actually even felt a few "kicks", which is rare these days with such limited space. But he seemed to stretch his feet out with one on either side, because I felt a sudden poking on the right side of my belly as well as the left, spaced pretty far apart! He still has enough room for little "punches" where his hands are though, and often my bladder seems to be the target. One time I think he startled or something, because I had this strange sensation of being stretched in every direction at once all of a sudden! It felt like he flailed out his limbs really quickly and then pulled them back in. He is rolling a lot these days, from one side to the other, and I can feel his little bum sticking up to the right, center or left of the area above my belly button. He still gets the hiccups very often now (usually about once a day), which gives me a very good chance to assess his position! I can find a spot where the hiccups feel very strong, especially if he is curled up with his back to the right side (which he seems to do often) and know that his upper back/chest area is there. The farther I move my hand away from that area, the fainter the hiccups. He has gotten so big now that sometimes I can be pretty sure about what I am feeling - whether it's his back or bum or knees or feet. I really love rubbing his little back and bum, and he seems to respond to it by quieting (perhaps going back to sleep!) or by pushing back against my hand! Some days we'll spend quite a while just having this play-time together - maybe in some way he wonders "Is this mommy's hand now?" in the same way I am wondering about his reactions and movements. Another cool change in my body as it prepares for baby's arrival is that I'm leaking more colostrum. This has actually been really encouraging, since breastfeeding Avery is such an important priority for me! I started leaking a tiny bit quite some time ago, but now the actual amount of colostrum seems to be increasing as time gets closer to feed my little baby, so that is great! I am hoping this means my real milk may come in a little quicker this time too - with Harmony, it took four days. Of course, with a C-section, it does take longer anyways, but maybe this time even if I have a C-section, my milk will come in within 2 or 3 days instead. I guess I should also give a sleep update... I don't have a regular sleep pattern at this point, but don't expect to! I just grab whatever sleep I can in between hip aches and getting up to go to the bathroom and the occasional bout of insomnia. This morning I was up at 3am for a bathroom break and couldn't settle back to sleep after. I got up to read for a while and flip through Harmony's baby scrapbook, then went back to bed at 4:45 to give sleep another try. Didn't end up dozing off again until our alarm had already gone off (I think the music of the radio actually lulled me back to sleep!). After Paul and Harmony left for work and school, though, I lay down on my bed to rest for "just a minute" and slept until the phone woke me up at 9. However, the two nights previous to last night were great! I added a new pillow to my growing little fortress (Paul is starting to pretend he is sleeping on the very edge of the bed), and it really seemed to help! So now I have two pillows at my head, the big body pillow to prop up my belly, a small throw pillow on top to drape my arm over so it's not pushing on my belly or breasts uncomfortably, a small pillow between my knees to take the pressure off my hips, and a regular pillow behind me to support my back Yep, I know, I'm up to 7 pillows... but they really do help me sleep better! I have told Paul he's lucky we only have a few weeks to go because I've been adding an average of one pillow per month since the first trimester! Weight Gain/Food: Uh-oh, another 2lbs added to the total this week, so I'm up to 26lbs. Can't say I'm surprised though because I have had such strong cravings lately! Still drinking lots of milk (and still craving Root Beer as well), and feeling very thirsty in general. I've been pretty awful with snacking lately. Although I still have healthy snacks like yogurt and muffins, I can't seem to help indulging in many "treats" as well - having so many birthday cupcakes and cakes around in the past month has been a bit of a hazard, too! Emotional: Nothing really "new" here... still a little more sensitive to things though. I was feeling upset when I noticed I had gained some weight on my legs and feet, and Paul said "Would it help to say that you hardly ever see them anymore anyways?", trying to be funny, and I just burst into tears, saying "No, because it's true!!!". Something else I've noticed lately is that I'm either being more grumpy or more assertive, depending on how you look at it. I guess I'm just fed up with the nonsense right now and starting to care less about what others think and more about just what gets me through with my sanity still intact. For isntance, I don't lie when people wake me up with a phone call (or worse, apologize to them even though they were the ones who woke me up!). So I guess in a way this is a good thing, because I'm guarding the time and energy I have left and saving it all for myself, my family, and especially my growing little guy! I just hope I can still do the same thing when he is a newborn baby and needing all the time and attention I can give him. I hope these hormones help me be "grumpy" enough to protect my priorities!
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