9 Months Pregnant 2011!

36 Weeks, March 20-26, 2011

9 Months + 3 Days Belly Shot!

Milestones: This was a very exciting week! Kevin finished building the nursery furniture including the crib so I've been putting away the washed baby clothing and trying to set up the nursery to look how I would like it to look. Getting the nursery ready reminds me again how lucky I am to have the people in my life that I do. Almost every single item we needed was provided at the baby shower. I'm lucky to have so many kind and generous people in my life. Kevin and I just bought a few odds and ends that weren't on our registry. After a week, I'm still not done, but I promise at least a progress photo next week.

Kevin building the baby's crib on Sunday

We had possibly our last sonogram on Wednesday, and though the baby was covering his face again, we learned that he has A LOT of hair, and is weighing in at about 7 pounds and 13 ounces! "You're basically carrying around a full-term baby and you can never put him down." - Sonogram Technician. He's putting on more than an ounce a day, and still working on lung development, which seems to involve a lot of hiccuping.

From now on, we go to the doctor every week so they can check to see if labor is imminent. In that spirit, I'm going to try to post promptly and frequently so that if I suddenly have to go to the hospital there won't be anything left unblogged.

The baby's weight estimate made me think of the Baby Bets we placed in October. The program relies on some tricky formulas where you get or lose points for every ounce away from the baby's weight you are and every HOUR away from the baby's arrival. So you don't have to have the right gender or weight to win necessarily. But if it were more like college basketball, there would be 11 of you who would have busted your brackets already with a girl under 8 pounds. I think at this point, Jon is the front-runner, but it really depends on when the baby decides to show up.

Weekly Wisdom: I have been skipping this category until now, but I finally had a little piece of insight. Baby socks are the cutest thing ever. Unbearably cute. They are also some kind of matching game torture device, especially the completely white ones which still manage to be subtly different from each other. And because they are so small they have the ability to simply disappear into the time-space continuum. My evidence is that we threw 13 pairs in the laundry and got out 10 pairs and 3 socks without a match.

What I miss the most: Sleeping even somewhat normally or comfortably. HOT DOGS, and I don't even want to talk about how sad that is.
Craving: Strawberry juice, strawberry sorbet, cherry and strawberry yogurt, burgers, (hotdogs), peanut butter and strawberry jam
Anti-craving: None.
Symptoms: Most days I wake up at 5 or 6 am and can't go back to sleep for 2 or 3 hours, and then it's back to bed time. I'm sleepy all the time but sleep is the enemy. Also swelled hands and knuckles and back pain.

Oh and here's a fun demonstration of what a total joke pregnancy is. This is me reaching as far over the kitchen sink as I can. Granted if I were taller, or stood on a stepping stool I might be able to reach by getting my belly over the sink, but still, this is absurd.

And here's a fun baby trick. He likes to sit in the middle or on the left side of my body exclusively. And since he's so big, I can watch him do it.

This is so. Alien.

Baby-size: A crenshaw melon.Whatever, he's newborn size now, okay?
Weight gain: I haven't gained weight in 3 weeks so I will now admit to being at 38 pounds, but I am really not talking about it anymore.

As far as New York, generally, the weather still hasn't settled down here. Last week it warmed up, but this week was cold again. Not only did it snow and hail on Wednesday, but it actually thunder-hailed on Wednesday night!

All right, we're off to our hospital tour now. How exciting is that!