Pregnancy Update - 32 Weeks

Wow, is it possible that we only have 8 weeks of pregnancy left before this baby makes his or her grand entrance into our world? I suppose maybe we have only 7 weeks or maybe we have 9 or 10 weeks (eek)! Afterall I was born 2-3 weeks late, although my Mom isn't convinced that the doctor had my due date right in the first place, so maybe I was actually right on time!

We induced labor with Gavin when I was 5 days overdue, and although it all turned out fine, at this point I don't want to be induced again and hope to be able to let this baby come on it's own schedule. We'll see how that goes - it's really up to someone much more powerful than us!

When I wrote in my 30 week update nearly two weeks ago that I had almost ten weeks left, ten weeks felt like forever. Now, suddenly, eight weeks seems like nothing! It seems like this baby will be here in no time at all!

I had my 32 week appointment today and this was the last of the appointments that were 4 weeks apart. My next two appointments are at 2 week intervals and then when I'm 36 weeks pregnant, I'll start going every week up until my due date.

As my doctor said to me at my appointment today, "you're boring, and that's a good thing". There isn't much out of the ordinary in my pregnancy. Baby seems to be healthy, I seem to be healthy, I don't really have any questions, I don't feel like I need to take the birthing class again, I don't need a tour of the hospital (since I work there!) and overall, there just isn't too much interesting to discuss at my appointments. As of today, I have gained a total of 9 lbs during this pregnancy. My weight went down a bit at first from my pre-pregnancy weight, but then climbed slowly back up for a total gain from pre-pregnancy (technically my first OB appt at 8 weeks) up until today. That doesn't seem like very much to me, but I think that all of the extra non-baby weight that is visible in my belly area must have come from my butt, because as my belly gets bigger and bigger, my butt seems to get flatter and flatter. I'm not loving the flat-butt look, especially since all of the maternity pants that I own have a bigger butt area so they tend to look a little deflated when I wear them, but I think I'd prefer this over getting a huge butt. What's really important though, is my belly and our doctor says my belly measured right at 32 weeks, so that's awesome! My blood pressure was 108/62, which is good. Baby's heart rate was 150, which I think is the same as it was the last time I was in.

According to www.babycenter.com, here is what's going on with baby right now:

By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, your baby will gain a third to half of its birth weight during the next 7 weeks as it fattens up for survival outside the womb. He/she now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). His/her skin is becoming soft and smooth as he/she plumps up in preparation for birth.

I've definitely noticed a few significant changes in the last couple of weeks. I notice a little shortness of breath, particularly when I'm slouching against a few pillows on my bed with my computer in my lap (like now). It seems the baby (or my uterus) is pushing up near my diaphragm. I've also experienced some surprise heartburn, which I normally don't have at all. The other major change I've noticed is that I feel like the baby is poking and prodding WAY down low, where he or she shouldn't be yet! It's definitely enough to stop me in my tracks sometimes and I just freeze and gasp for a moment, but I remember feeling that same feeling when I was pregnant with Gavin and nothing was out of the ordinary. I mentioned it to my doctor today anyway and she felt baby through my belly to see what position baby was in, just in case baby was breach. She confirmed that baby is perfectly in place with head down, butt under my right ribcage and legs and feet under my left ribcage. So, those pokes and jabs that I'm feeling (that feel like baby is trying to crawl right out!) are most likely fists and elbows way down low. They really feel like they're pushing right through my cervix sometimes! The kicks that I'm feeling up under my ribs are also much more clear and... identifiable than the little taps and swooshes that I felt earlier in the pregnancy. Now rather than a general swoosh or hiccup-like tap, I feel significant kicks and punches, with fewer overall body movements. I think baby is more settled into place and just isn't rolling around much anymore, although I know it's still entirely possible for baby to completely change position in there.

I've been feeling really good overall, although I'm having some major insomnia, just as I did when I was expecting Gavin. I usually fall asleep within an hour or hour and a half of going to bed (no matter what time I go to bed), but I wake up between 1:00am and 3:00 am and if it's closer to 3:00 then I really don't ever get back into a good sleep. I'm often looking at the clock every hour, even if I drift in and out of consciousness a bit. If I wake up at 1:00, I can usually fall back asleep for a couple of hours. Some days I feel incredibly tired and just want to go to sleep, but it usually hits me around about 4:00pm or so, which is a time I certainly can't sleep because I'm either at work or I've just picked Gavin up from preschool and Cliff isn't home to be with him. I've been able to get a pretty good night's rest one or two nights a week if I take a Unisom before bed, which is one of the medications determined to be safe to take during pregnancy. I still don't like the idea of taking medication and can't imagine that it doesn't somehow affect the baby, so I limit it to once or twice a week, when I know I can go to bed early and sleep a little later in the morning. It's helpful to know I can get a good night's sleep at least one night a week. I do still get up once or twice for potty-breaks, but it's easier to fall back to sleep on those nights.

I still think I could be eating better and I'm enjoying more sweets and more coffee than I should, but I'm also being sure to eat nutritous foods as well, so baby is getting enough of what it needs and I am too. Gavin has sure been appreciating my sweet tooth as we've been doing a lot more baking than usual. Gavin loves to help in the kitchen and has gotten really good at adding ingredients carefully, stirring, mixing, and not making too huge of a mess of the kitchen or himself! He loves to make banana bread, pancakes, and cupcakes, but he also makes pretty good scrambled eggs and knows just how much water to put in a frying pan with the sausage so they don't burn before they cook through. He's my little chef! Now if we could just perfect the egg-cracking. He's good at it, but we do typically have to fish out a little piece or two of egg shell as his thumbs aren't quite big enough to pull the shell apart and instead they just poke into the shell, pushing the cracked shell into the egg inside.

He's my little peanut. He is getting more excited for baby to be here and still asks how much longer. We go through the whole list of significant dates... Halloween, His Birthday, Thanksgiving, BABY, Christmas. He also asks when it's going to be winter / when it's going to snow, so we go through the list then too!

Here is Gavin loving up that baby in my belly!