Well y’all, I’m recapping week 38 which means I am officially one week away from due date! (Did you know… less than 5% of women give birth on their due date? Random factoid of the day!)  So while Baby Girl can come any day now, she has shown no signs of appearing, so I’m just going to keep on keeping on with my routine! But we did have a sonogram last week to check on her so I have lots of info for you this week!!

Baby’s Size: She measured at the sonogram last week 7lbs 7 ounces, which is larger than I was expecting her to be.  Although the sonographer did say she tends to measure a little heavy, and a few friends have warned me that those weights aren’t exactly spot on… but still! That is definitely in the category I want to be in: no huge baby (not a shocker since the hubs and I are both pretty small people), but big enough to avoid some potential health problems from being too small!

Baby’s Progress: She is just cookin’ right along in there, gaining weight (and hopefully some chubby little legs).  My doctor didn’t think she would come this week… and so far she has been right.  Which since the husband just got back from his mission trip with the youth group he leads, I’m grateful that she waited until after that to make her appearance! Now we are just waiting for her to show up!

Weight Gain: I gained a couple of pounds this week, putting me right around the 25 lb weight gain total for this pregnancy.  Which they say is right in the normal category for someone my size and starting weight.  I will say… its a little crazy to look at the scale and see a number I’ve never seen before, and every time I step on at the doctor I give a little eek! Her scale is a couple lbs over mine (I obviously like mine better) so it always reads higher than mine does… not that I’m standing on mine much these days.

Sleep: Sleep is definitely harder these days, she is still hoarding in on my lung space when I lay down, so breathing is tricky.  I’ve gone back to using the pregnancy pillow to prop me up a bit so I can breathe.  And Lexie is banished to her crate at night since she can’t seem to resist eating clothing items, and she doesn’t love being in there, so she occasionally barks or whimpers to be let out.  Who knew I would be re-crate training a 4 year old dog in the last weeks of pregnancy!?

Milestones: We had our first sonogram since she was 20 weeks old, which was pretty exciting! My mom went with me since she was in town and the husband wasn’t (don’t worry… we sent him a video).  And it was crazy how different the sonos were! When she is 20 weeks you can see most of her on the screen all at the same time, but now you can just see her head, or an elbow, or small body parts at one time since she is taking up so much room in my stomach! But it was very reassuring to see her and double check her heart beat and size and gender (yes she is for sure a girl!).  We also found out she (theoretically) has a lot of hair… you could see it around her head on the sonogram.  I’m still hoping she’ll be a little blonde like Reese and I were as kids… so we will see!

Favorite clothing item of the week: Hmmm… I feel like I’m wearing the same jeans and t-shirts every day since that is what is most comfortable, but I did dress up in tights and a tunic last night that looked pretty cute… so we will go with that.  I think more creative dressers are better at the pregnancy wardrobe, but I’ve always been a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, so its hard to move away from that when all I want is comfort these days!

Symptoms: My feet and hands are definitely swelling still, but not SO bad.  Mostly my feet hurt when I get up in the morning because they are swollen and tender.  And its a good thing it is summer because flip flops are by far the most comfortable shoes to wear.  I still have some pretty crazy heartburn, and EVERYTHING is more uncomfortable by now, but I can’t complain too much… most of the time I feel great, just a little more tired than I normally am!

Workout: NOPE! I have gotten in the pool a few times because it feels amazing right now, but I’m not doing much of the lap swimming.  And walking isn’t very comfortable.  Plus a whole bunch of people told me long walks were a great way to induce labor and I was trying all week to NOT induce labor while Reese was out of town. So I mostly relaxed and took it easy around the house!

Mom and Dad were in town this last week and it was great to have the company while Reese was gone.  Plus mom spent the weekend working on my backyard and it has never looked better!! I wasn’t much help, but she did an awesome job and it will be nice to enjoy throughout the rest of the summer not worrying about the weeding or mulching that needed to happen!!

I’ll let you know when baby girl makes her appearance into the world! I made a cute onesie in case she is here before the 4th of July… so that’s what I’m hoping for!

PS. If you missed any of the updates, you can check them all out here.

PS… sorry for the blurry, wet haired picture… turns out it is harder to remember to take these than you would expect! So this is legitimately what I looked like this morning before work #wethairdontcare

Baby’s Size: I appreciated Pregnant Chicken’s Week 38 blog post where she explains that all the pregnancy ‘what to expect’ this week things try to compare baby girl to a vegetable/fruit/etc.  But the most accurate size comparison is to an actual baby, because she is pretty much fully the size of a baby now! I have a sonogram on Friday (my first in about 18 weeks!) so I’m hopeful to know more accurately how big my little girl is in particular and just some reassurance that she is doing a-ok in there.

Baby’s Progress: More temperature regulation, brain and lung development are the name of the game for the next few weeks. She also has shifted down, which means she is getting prepped to make her entrance into the world sometime soon!

Weight Gain: I gained another pound this week, so I think all in all I am on track to gain 25 lbs in this pregnancy, which for someone my height and weight is exactly what I should have done.  Although it is kind of entertaining to me how many people comment on a pregnant woman’s size.  I was prepared for these comments since all the pregnancy blogs/books/etc warn of them; but it is amazing to me how often it happens! I had one woman at church who commented about how much I was waddling.  She obviously doesn’t remember what it was like to have a child’s head sitting on your pubic bone.

Sleep: So the good news is I’ve gotten quite a bit more sleep this week, but since this was the place last week I told you about my dog’s sock eating escapades, I’ll do that update here… apparently she decided to up her game and over the weekend chose to eat the armrest cover to a blue suede couch that I have upstairs.  The whole armrest cover.  So even though she had 5 days of feeling much better after her sock eating fiasco, on Sunday afternoon she took a fairly dramatic turn for the worse and started vomiting and generally looking miserable.  So first thing yesterday I took her to the vet, they did X-Rays and decided she needed surgery.  Which ended up being a good decision because the elastic was joining two large pieces of fabric and she was pretty miserable.  So she is now recovering from surgery at the Vet’s office and I am researching ways to prevent dogs from eating things they shouldn’t.  So far it has led me to purchase another dog crate.

Milestones: Yesterday we went to the funeral service of one of my childhood heroes. He was an older member of the first church where my dad was the pastor.  He and his wife were pillars of the community, leaders in the church, and all around wonderful people.  He was a small town Texas banker, a WWII pilot and had more personality than most people could dream of. And he would have loved his funeral service.  It was perfect: a bit irreverent, entertaining, full of good old stories, and shared the gospel a little in between.  Ralph would have loved it.  And it was pretty powerful for me to be sitting on the same church pews that I sat on every Sunday of several years of my childhood listening to my dad preach while I am so close to welcoming my little girl into the world.  It made me think about what life would look like in another 25 years and who the childhood heroes would be for Baby Girl.  I hope hers are as good as mine were. It was sad to say goodbye to Ralph, but great to be able to be a part of the celebration of his life.

Okay, enough sentimentality.  On with the update:

Favorite clothing item of the week: Gap T-shirts.  I live in these things these days.  They are so comfy and easy to toss on in the morning.  I hope their announcement that they are closing a bunch of stores doesn’t interfere with their maternity line, because I’m not sure I could have survived dressing for this pregnancy without these gap T-shirts… I own them in about 5 or 6 colors, and duplicates of a few! Especially if you can time it right and use a 30 or 40% off coupon, making them somewhere around 12$.  That’s cheaper than Target t-shirts!!

Symptoms: I spoke too soon about not having swollen feet! I went to put on a pair of dress shoes this weekend and they definitely didn’t fit so well!! The bottoms of my feet hurt pretty much all the time, and my fingers are starting to swell a bit,  I waddle (see above story) and moving is getting much more difficult.  I can for sure see why women are so uncomfortable in the final weeks of pregnancy! I’m not ready to say that I am so ready for her to come and to not be pregnant anymore, but I can see how this will get old REALLY FAST.  I’m hoping baby girl stays in there at least through this weekend since the husband is out of town on a Mission Trip until Saturday.  But after Saturday, she can come whenever she wants!! (I am fully aware that I have 0 control over this… so I’m trying to fight against my planner instincts and just let her come when she wants, but before the 4th of July would be great!)

Workout: I have walked and swam quite a bit this week, and plan to continue that for the next two(!) weeks, although this week with Reese being out of town, I’m trying to take it easier and spend a lot of time with my feet up, since all the books tell me that long walks are a great way to induce labor.  My parents came down to spend the week with me, so I’m in good hands, but I’d still rather she wait until AFTER Reese gets home to make his appearance!

It is crazy to me that within the next 3 weeks Baby Girl will be here (my doc says she will only let her go a week past due date so I feel fairly confident in this guesstimate).  People keep asking if we are ready, and I think the answer is as ready as anyone can be.  Her things are all washed and put away, her room is ready, Reese and I have done a lot of reading and talking to friends about caring for a child, but I’m not sure you can actually BE mentally ready for your first child.  I think its more of a hold on for a wild ride kind of thing… but we are excited to be so close to getting on the ride!

PS. If you missed any of the updates, you can check them all out here.