Well folks the big day is almost upon us. If all goes according to plan the c-section should be on Monday morning. I can’t believe all of our planning and prepping has come down to this. I can’t believe we are so close to welcoming our son into the world. I can’t believe so many things right now. Just keep us in your hearts and prayers as we move on to this next phase of our life. It will be challenging and it will be fun. I honestly can’t wait to get started on it.
Here are some pictures of the nursery and all the stuff we have received. A special thank you goes out to all those who have helped us along the way, either through gifts, support or both. It is appreciated.
By the way. I put together a lot of stuff and this turned out to be the hardest piece of all. I can’t believe what it took to get it assembled.
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Your Baby (replace the she for he)
One uncomfortable complaint of late pregnancy is frequent hiccups. No, not you, your baby. Because there is no air around your baby, when she practices breathing, it can cause amniotic fluid to get into her windpipe, resulting in those regularly spaced thumps that make you think you’re carrying a jumping bean in your belly. Other news this week:
The lanugo (an exotic word for soft, downy hair) that used to cover your baby’s body has mostly disappeared, but you may find a bit leftover on the shoulders, forehead and neck. Don’t freak and think you’ve given birth to a monkey: It’ll fall out soon.
The color of baby’s skin is changing from a red-pink hue to a white or blue-pink color (even in babes with dark skin). These changes are due to the amount of fat your little pudger is putting on. The circumference of your baby’s head and abdomen are about the same size now (though you may not be able to tell if your baby’s born with the common cone-shaped head!).
The placenta is lending your Mini antibodies that’ll keep him strong and healthy after birth. That said, it’s still a good idea to invest in that mega-size bottle of hand sanitizer.
At this point your little critter is about 19 to 20 inches long and weights about 7 pounds. That’s just around the size of a large rabbit. What’s up Doc?
Well today (Saturday) we have the fourth and last baby shower before the baby is born. We have been talking about a possible C-Section and yesterday (Friday) we found out that it was necessary. The baby is measuring very large and he is currently sideways so that made our decision with getting the C-Section a lot easier. We really had no choice. It wasn’t a want to or not want to, but a have to. We scheduled it for Monday the 17th of September.
Keep mom to be and baby to be in your hearts and prayers as we move on to this very important date – which I know is one of the biggest of my lifetime and mom to be’s lifetime.
That’s it for the week.
Your Baby
Your baby’s intestines have accumulated a considerable amount of meconium (the code name for black, tar-like baby poop), which is usually eliminated shortly after birth and gives you your first experience with the 100-wipe diaper change. Here’s what else is up:
Your baby might just scratch herself in the womb as the fingernails have grown over the fingertips now. Resist painting them hot pink when she arrives.
Baby’s lungs continue to mature and her brain and nerve function are working better every day. The latter two will continue to mature until Junior is a teenager, at which point she’ll know it all (or at least she’ll think she does).
Your baby weighs about 6½ pounds and is around 19 or 20 inches long—as long as a duffle bag (in case you needed an excuse to go shopping for a new bag for your labor gear).
The weeks keep rolling on towards the birth and it seems like each week is starting to get tougher. We were cruising right along until about Week 34 to Week 35 and then it all just seemed to change overnight.
This week we went to the doctor twice – once for another growth ultra sound and then just a routine check up. Both turned out great – baby to be and mom to be are both healthy.
Mom to be is now working from home and keeping her feet up while she battles swelling. Epsom salt baths, elevation, and walking to get out the stiffness seem to be helping. I don’t think there is much that can be done about the swelling. It is a part of it.
Any mothers reading this that can offer help or advice – please leave us some information on what helped you get through your later stages of pregnancy.
On another side of things – not baby related, but happening this week. We decided to do some remodeling on our kitchen, purely by accident.
We’ve had a leaky faucet for a while and the only way to fix the leak was to turn the handle to the left. This was eventually going to catch up with us and on Wednesday it did. The handle broke on the faucet and we were forced to use pliers to turn the water on and off. I went out and bought a new faucet that evening and then waited till Thursday to install it. I called in my father in law who is really good at installing this stuff. I’m not a great handy man, but I am getting better at it.
Anyway. Thursday arrived and me and my father in law went to work on the faucet. We did all we were supposed to do in order for it to lift right off so we could install the new one. For some reason it was hung up. After some careful searching we found the culprit.
There was a nut holding the faucet to the sink that was impossible to get to because it looked like this nut was screwed in before the sink was installed. So we undid the bolts holding the sink in place and pulled the whole sink out of the counter. We unscrewed the nut, replaced the faucet, and put the sink back in its hole. Done, easy enough – right!
Wrong.
We decided to go ahead and put in a new sink because this one we currently had was old and well used and we wanted a deeper sink for the kitchen. My father in law ran down to Lowe’s to find us a new sink.
Okay, so new sink, put the faucet on, fix everything in place – done, right? Wrong again.
From this point forward it just went downhill. The pipes didn’t fit back in place because the drainage areas on the sink were further back than they were in the old sink. The sink was also deeper so that caused issues. The water lines were to short to reach the new sink. The list just went on.
When Thursday ended we had our sink in, but nothing was hooked up. We got water from the bathroom and drank bottled water until Friday.
On Friday my father in law came back and he took out all the old plumbing under the sink and re built it himself so it would fit the new sink. New water lines were put in place which were longer and we now have everything back to the way it was. I want to give a special thinks to my father in law for taking the time to do this. He really impressed me with all he knows about home repair. I would have been lost without him.
It is funny that this year it seems like I have gotten a crash course in what it takes to be a parent and a dad from both sets of parents – mine and my wife’s. Knowledge that will help me become a well-rounded father.
Here’s a video to give you an idea of what our house looked like before and after the kitchen sink remodel.
Okay, Week 37.
Your Baby
Huge news this week: You’re carrying a full-term baby! If you were to go into labor today, all systems would be a go. Woohoo! Even though you can’t wait for the little bambino to quite literally rear his head, keep in mind that your bun benefits from every day in the oven. Other ticker-tape-worthy developments:
Baby’s growth slows down dramatically this week, which is great news for your birth canal. His bones are still soft and pliable and will solidify after he’s born. More great news for your birth canal.
So if he’s all cooked and ready to go, what the heck is he still doing in there?! He’s busy practicing for “life on the outside,” working on his breathing, sucking, sleeping, gazing and peeing abilities. The only thing he can’t practice yet is his ability to scream at the top of his lungs when he’s hungry—but he’ll do plenty of that in a few weeks.
At this point babies vary in size, but the average length is between 19 and 20 inches and most babies weigh approximately 6 pounds. About the size of an average largemouth bass caught in Minnesota by your cousin Earl.
A rainband is a cloud and precipitation structure associated with an area of rainfall which is significantly elongated. Rainbands can be stratiform or convective,[1] and are generated by differences in temperature. When noted on weather radar imagery, this precipitation elongation is referred to as banded structure.[2] Rainbands within tropical cyclones are curved in orientation. Tropical cyclone rainbands contain showers and thunderstorms that, together with the eyewall and the eye, constitute a hurricane or tropical storm. The extent of rainbands around a tropical cyclone can help determine the cyclone’s intensity.
Your baby continues to put on weight at about ½ pound each week. This layer of fat will help your baby regulate his body temperature after leaving your climate-controlled womb. In fact, your baby will be 15 percent fat at birth (and you … well that’s another story). Even in the womb, your baby can listen, feel, touch and see. The only thing separating him from living in the outside world is a little thing called the birth canal. Other highlights this week:
His gums are firm with ridges that look somewhat like teeth, though his actual pearly whites won’t start breaking through until he’s between three months and a year old.
Your baby has definite patterns of sleep and wakefulness—opening his eyes while awake and closing them while sleeping. Your baby will become alert and turn his head toward light and sound just as a newborn would—except when you put on that Celine Dion CD. Then the baby puts his hands up, turns away and gurgles, “Oh no you didn’t!”
Your baby is now around 18½ inches long and nearly 6 pounds—just about as big as a breadbox!
We’ve learned of a new glucose test this week, the two-hour one. Mom to be has had the one hour test, the three-hour test, and now the two-hour test. What is the two-hour test you may ask? Basically mom to be fasts from midnight until her appointment. Then she goes to the lab and has her blood drawn. We then go home and mom to be has what she normally has for breakfast. When she takes that last bite of breakfast the clock starts ticking. Two hours from the last bite we must be back at the lab in order for mom to be to get more blood drawn (no results as of today – Thursday). So mom to be has now been through all three glucose tests and handled them like a star. I am proud of her.
Mom to be is experiencing swelling in her legs so any mothers out there who have advice on how to correct it, we would be more than happy to listen to it. Epsom Salt baths and cucumber water has helped so far, but nothing beats staying home and resting. When mom to be has the time to just rest with her feet elevated her legs seem to respond well to that.
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