The Long Saga: 35 Weeks

Only 5 more weeks! The weeks seem to be flying by! I can't believe how close we actually are! Here are a few indicators letting us know this baby is not far in sight.

1. All of our TV shows are airing their season finale.
2. I only have 2 more days left to work in the office
3. A lot of my maternity tops are starting to get a little short at the bottom and my belly tries to peak out
4. My To-Do Lists are getting shorter
5. My back is starting to ache
6. I'm starting to get stretch marks
7. My appointments are every week now starting this Thursday
8. We've completed our birthing class

Our baby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that he/she's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew melon). Because the baby is so snug in my womb, it's not likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he/she kicks should remain about the same. The kidneys are fully developed now, and the liver can process some waste products. Most of the basic physical development is now complete — the baby will spend the next few weeks putting on weight.

My uterus — which was entirely tucked away inside my pelvis when I conceived — now reaches up under my rib cage. If you could peek inside my womb, you'd see that there's more baby than amniotic fluid in there now. My ballooning uterus is crowding my other internal organs, too, which is why I may need to urinate more often and may have to deal with heartburn. I would have to say, I'm one of the lucky few since I'm not experiencing heartburn at all (I've only had it maybe a couple times the entire pregnancy). I also don't find myself having issues with urinating too much (at least not yet); but there are a few times, the baby's hand or head presses up against my bladder and I have a slight urge to go, but the urge disappears as quickly as it came on when the baby moves away.

Thursday night, I attended a breastfeeding class with Andrea who is one week ahead of me in her pregnancy. I originally did not care to take a class on breastfeeding, thinking this should come naturally and I'll have lactation consultants at the hospital on hand 24 hours a day. I actually learned so much though and hope it comes by as naturally as the videos made it seem. If it were one thing I would take away from the class, it would be remembering to let the baby be in control and not me.

Friday night, Craig and I joined my parents and some of their friends at Toby's Dinner Theatre to watch Hairspray. There won't be many nights like that, because when Craig and I are out, my parents will be watching the baby. So, I'm glad we got a chance to do that.

Saturday night, I had Afghan food for my first time at Helmand's in Baltimore. My friend Remy had a welcome back dinner party since she was gone since the end of October. It was so nice to finally see her back!!! The food was fantastic!!

We attending our birthing class on Saturday and Sunday. Would you believe that there were about 10 couples there and 5 of them are having a boy and the other 5, including us, were not finding out the sex? Our instructor was even amazed at the number not finding out. But to top it off, there wasn't a couple that was expecting a girl. I'm glad Craig didn't feel the weekend was a waste of his time. He actually found it to be quite interesting. And he even gave me a wonderful "rolling pin" massage!!! I'm definitely packing one of those for the hospital! After we completed our weekend of birth classes, we met up with Mike and Eileen for lunch.

Below are pictures from after our lunch on Sunday. My 35th week "belly pic" is not included and I will have to include at a later time. I just need to get this blog posted before I hit my 36th week's post!

Eileen and I