Monday, March 9, 2009

Thirty Seven Weeks

Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

I am THRILLED to announce that I am officially on maternity leave! We had a bit of a scare last week with high blood pressure. I started seeing that they call “floaters” in my vision and went straight to the doc. My BP was 150/100 – pretty high for me who’s base line is 120/70. I ended up going to the pregnancy ER for immediate lab work to check my liver enzymes to see if this was preeclampsia. As soon as they got me on the monitors and had me lay on my left side, magically my BP went down to 110/50. WHAT? My BP has never been that low! Wow.

My doc knew that Friday was my last day so she said to just clear up any projects on Friday and head home. After a nice farewell pizza party by my friends at work – I was tearfully out the door. I didn’t think I would be so emotional about leaving work, but I will miss everyone there. They have been so supportive throughout this entire pregnancy. Listening to me complain about every little ache or pain. They’ve all become really close friends and I’m so grateful to have them!

They’ve asked me to come in early this week to check in and get the much anticipated “sizing” ultrasound. We’re going to try to determine if this little one is too big to make it down the intended path. If he’s measuring larger than expected, we will talk about our “options.” I’m still not going to dwell on this until we see the actual numbers and discuss things with the doc.

So, now I’m home officially on maternity leave. I have about two weeks before my due date and plan to do at least one productive thing each day. Yesterday, I attempted to wash Ozzie. Now, he’s such a sweet heart, he actually jumped into the tub when I asked him! What kind of dog willingly goes into the tub to be soaped up? A very loving, very willing to please pug who does anything for his mommy. The task was monumental. He hadn’t had a bath in quite sometime and was working up a pretty good puggy stink. It was even more monumental that I was able to kneel on my knees next to the tub being 9 + months pregnant and get the job done. I did loose my balance once or twice and landed right on my very well padded bottom. I swear by behind is as big, if not bigger, than my belly. Hey – it evens me out I guess. It’s still depressing knowing the belly will recede once I have this little guy, but my but is going to remain the same. That’s an entirely different post.

On today’s agenda: get my seriously swollen feet for a pedicure ASAP! Poor things look like swollen sausages. I’ve lost sight of my ankles ages ago, but now the swelling has moved down to my little piggies…which are living up to their name! Depending on how I feel after the pedi, I may tackle cleaning out my closet. Something I haven’t done in a few years and my wardrobe could really use some “lightening”

I’ll let you know how the doc’s apt goes and what “option” we decide on.

More to come – pictures of our finally COMPLETE nursery! It’s way cute, if I do say so myself!