36 Weeks

We’re in the home stretch now. Only 4 weeks left to go – wahoo! And actually, it might even be less than that. We went to the doctor this week. Good news – blood pressure wasn’t any higher. Bad news – I now have mild pre-eclampsia. So the doctor basically said they wouldn’t let me go full-term to 40 weeks. They took an ultrasound to check her growth and fluid levels. There is a good amount of amniotic fluid and she is estimated to weigh 6 lbs. 14 oz. That’s almost 7 pounds! And she’ll continue to gain about half a pound a week. They checked her heart rate, measured the length of her bones, etc. And everything came back fine. She was laying on her side at the time of the ultrasound, head down, her body wrapped around in the fetal position. So now I know that the kicks I’ve been feeling on the right side of my belly are from her long legs!

So I’m continuing to work part-time. The doctor didn’t take me out of work completely, which is a good thing. But she asked how work was going and whether or not it was stressful. I got the feeling that if I gave her a different answer, she would have taken me out of work completely. I told her it was going fine. Which it is. It’s nice to get out of the house for a few hours and socialize, work a little. Get my mind off things.

I go back to the doctor next week and they will re-evaluate me then. I will be 37 weeks, so I have a feeling at that point they might schedule an induction. Luckily with her head being down, it will be an induction and not a c-section. So I hope she stays that way. I guess it will depend on how my blood pressure is on Monday as to how soon they will induce me. The doctor said she just wanted me to get to 37 weeks, and “all bets are off” from there. So who knows. At first I was a little scared about being induced before my body was ready for labor naturally. But it sounds like Lil’ Pumpkin is at a good weight, and once we get to 37 weeks her lungs will be fully developed so everything will be fine. There is no need to risk going to 40 weeks if we don’t need to. So now I’m excited just thinking about which day it will be. Oct. 9th? Oct. 12? Our bags are packed and her car seat is installed, so we are ready to go!

Here is my picture for the week. The plan was to get me in front of the new pack-n-play, but Blake decided to come up and say hello to the baby. Pretty cute, huh?