HG Diary: 39 weeks

36 weeks and enjoying unseasonably warm weather.  I promise we're cuddling and I'm not attempting to smother her.

37 weeks and ready for bed

38 weeks in a clean but streaky mirror.

38 week *bare* belly while reclining, the scratches on the right are from a run in with a very sweet and excited great dane.

38 weeks and ready for bed...again.  I look like I live in a perpetual state of sleep preparedness... because I do.

Almost 39 weeks here, shaking my fist at the full moon.  The myth about full moons inducing labor has been proven wrong twice with our babies.  Babies come when they are ready.

Well, it's official.  I am the most pregnant I've ever been!  We made it to 39 weeks!  I've been a little slacking in the pregnancy posts and pictures because even though it'll be fun to look back on one day they feel incredibly vain.  I still need a 39 week picture and we'll get around to it, but if I don't take time to get this post out now it may not happen.

So far:

37 weeks:

Well, I had met with one of the midwives who had told me on my 37 week visit I was totally effaced.  They normally don't do "checks" until 38 weeks, but Corey's farm grandparents needed some help on the farm, (the farm taking him out of the state for the weekend) so we wanted to make sure we weren't a little more progressed than maybe I was feeling.  I was told I wasn't dilated at all but totally effaced, so for Corey not to stay away long because things could change quickly.  I brought my hospital birth plan and after reading it the midwife just looked at me and smiled "so as natural as possible, that's totally doable!"  She then got out her little tape measure to see how many weeks I was measuring but after laying down and lifting my shirt to expose my gargantuan belly she said "let's skip this part" with a wink, knowing what a ridiculous measurement could mean for us. (Transfer to OB for a macrosomic baby).  I was grateful.  Fiona's heartbeat was a perfect steady 140 bpm and we were sent on our way feeling pretty darn good about the situation.

38 weeks:
Corey was only gone for one full night at the farm, he could have stayed longer but he came home citing he missed his girls. *swoon*  So later that week he was able to come with me to my appointment.  Different midwife for this visit.  Actually I had made arrangements to meet with a specific midwife that I wanted to touch base with but the girl at the check out managed to foul that one up.  So distressingly enough, we were meeting with the midwife who started this whole macrosomic, baby weight estimate nonsense in the first place.  I wasn't overly happy.
She was much more diligent about my exam, and it would turn out that I am only 50% effaced but I am now 1 cm dilated.  (1 cm doesn't mean a lot to me, I was 1 cm with Isabelle for weeks and weeks).  I was cringing when she pulled out her tape measure, flashing Corey a look of worry and he sent his "we'll deal with this, don't worry" look to me.  I laid down and behold!  I was measuring spot on at 38 weeks (previously measuring 43 weeks).  Praise the Lord, Fiona had dropped!
Two fabulous things happened next:

• She had dropped! YAY!  This midwife could no longer make the argument about how large I was measuring.
• It was discovered that Fiona's head has settled nicely into my pelvis, also relieving the midwife's fears that she would be too large to birth.

*cue the mental "I told you so"*
I felt slightly validated.  I haven't delivered yet so I'm not counting my eggs before they hatch but it's nice when I can feel that the midwife is starting to have the same amount of confidence that my body can handle something I felt it was made to do anyway.

and so here we are... drum roll....

39 weeks!
I won't have a midwife appointment until Friday.  I have been having strong false labor but nothing that gets rhythmic or sticks.  The braxton and hicks contractions are more frequent as well but totally manageable.  My biggest complaint would be that my SPD is excruciatingly painful.  Now that little miss has settled down into my pelvis, I'm having serious pain getting comfortable at night and at the end of the day walking is very painful as well.  Isabelle never "dropped" so I had never dealt with a baby resting on my sciatic nerve, that's a whole different type of pain.  I would describe that pain at more of a radiating shock that can occasionally make my right leg numb.  The SPD hip pain feels like my pelvis has been removed, ran over with Mack truck and put back in place shattered. (lovely image I know).  I make all of these pleasant clicking noises when I walk.  I have lost some of the weight I had managed to gain thanks to my HG kicking back up, but it's nothing like what it was for Isabelle so I'm not below my pre-pregnancy weight yet and it feels like smooth sailing for me.

We are closing in on the big day.  I'm still waiting for those false labor contractions to turn into "this is it!" but until then we're just taking it easy and enjoying our time as a little family of three.

Snoozing toddler while I work on some birthing ball practice.

Watching Daddy shave.

Just some girlie french manicures.

Knitting a few things for the big and little sister to be.

Dancing in the kitchen with Daddy.