34 Weeks

Holy Shit! I'm 34 weeks into my pregnancy and time is not standing still. My lil' bean will soon be here and there's still so much to do. But not to worry...I'm not stressed out and it's unbelievable sometimes. I know some women would have everything done by now and I have practically nothing. Oh well. This lil' guy will have what he needs. Food, clean diapers, two loving parents and a place to lay his head when he needs to sleep. Anything other than that will just be extra. Nice extras, but I think we'll be OK for now. As for what's been happening this week, Paul & I met with Jody. We reviewed my revised birth plan and went through the breathing techniques, positions for labour, and initial breastfeeding holds. There's a lot of information to absorb so I've got to make some time to review all of this before my lil' bean decides to show up.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. I had to go to bed early on Friday so I could be in Guelph for my birthing class. We had to do the 7 hour classes because we work afternoons and couldn't make the evening classes. It was a long day and to top it off, I didn't learn anything new. We covered things like the growth of the baby, nutrition, the anatomy of the placenta and things that could go wrong during pregnancy. And although I new all about this stuff, there's one thing that this class did teach me. Keep your feet up when you sit!

For the last couple weeks I've experienced swelling in my feet, but nothing like Saturday. We had breaks every couple of hours and an hour for lunch but nothing helped. By the end of the day my feet were twice their normal size and I could barley keep my shoes on. I did nothing else that night in hopes that my feet would deflate, but no such luck. It wasn't until Sunday morning that they started looking like my normal tootsies. I got up and went to church but by the time I got back, poof...they were swollen again. And on goes the cycle. I get up with normal feet, and by the end of the day they look like potatoes. Tater toes is what I call them, but it's just plain ugly. Kankles do not look good on me!

On the bathroom front, I think we've picked out a bathtub. We've decided to take it one feature at a time and since the tub is going to be the big ticket item, we're working on that first. It's nothing too fancy, but does have two features that I'm not going to give up, even if we decide on a different model. It's deep enough so the water will come up to your shoulders, and it's got air jets for a therapeutic massage. We haven't bought it yet, and we'll probably look around some more but we really like this one.

Well, my lil' bean is now weighing in at 4.75 pounds and is 18 inches long. His weight is comparable to a cantaloupe. His central nervous system and his lungs continue to mature while his skin is filling out nicely. He is developing his own immunity to fight infections and his skeleton is hardening. If he were to be born now, there would only be a short stay in the NICU and he would most likely develop as well as a full term baby. But lets hope my lil' bean isn't done baking just yet. Only 6 more weeks to go.