37 weeks

We have now reached the official "full-term" marker today. Yay!  So truly now baby can come any day, since everything is now considered ready.  Up until this week I was feeling really good, especially considering this is baby no. 4. Sure I had moments where I was exhausted, but then again what woman wouldn't be running after daycare children and her own all week long?  Even though I had horrible morning sickness with this one, we had the H1N1 go thru our house, it's been a fairly smooth sailing pregnancy. I don't even really count that scare I had a couple of weeks ago. Compared to the complications that I had with the boys, this has been great, similar to what I had when I was pregnant with Dawn, including the emotional stressors I have had this pregnancy. Drama is all I say on that one.

This week though, things are progressing some more.  I had my 36 week check up this week with Dr. B.  He is so charming and makes me laugh. This time Dawn got to go with and hear the baby's heartbeat. She has yet to be able to go to an appointment with me during this pregnancy because of school. So it was fun watching her expression when she heard  Peanut's heartbeat. She said all in the same breathe "That's so cool, but it's really weird." lol.  Dr. B told us some funny stories about what his 5 boys did growing up. So it was a good 1st visit for Dawn to be there with. Everything is going good. Blood pressure was actually low considering the stressors that I've been under lately. 104/58. I think that's one of the lowest I've ever had. My weight went up, but I was retaining a lot of water this week, and it didn't help that I ate some potato chips either the night before the appointment.  Peanut's heartbeat was in the high 140's. I told Dr. B about some of the changes that I've been experiencing and he said it makes sense that I would be feeling them, since this is baby 4.  He nor I felt like I needed to be checked, that will happen next week.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. We started to get a tad bit excited yesterday.  I saw some physical changes, along with getting some contractions about 30-40 minutes apart.  They were consistent and I continued to feel like I've gone horseback riding without the benefit of a horse. (I've felt like that all week-not to mention but it feels like the baby is dropping.)They never got really uncomfortable, but enough for me to stop and take notice of the time.  And later last night when the back labor contractions kicked in, they did get stronger, where I needed to breathe thru them.  They got down to about 4minutes apart. I know that some of you are thinking why didn't you go up?  A lot of the physical signs weren't quite there yet, nor did the pain, I got from the contractions warrant a trip up to Labor and Delivery (L & D). I'm glad i didn't go, because at 5am this morning, they stopped till about 8am. Now I'm having constant back "ache", and the contractions are anywhere from 5-20minutes apart. They are quite a bit stronger, but again nothing that I'm going to up for L & D for yet.  It could stay like this till way past my due date, or we could be blessed with Peanut's arrival tomorrow.

It's all in God's hands. He knows Peanut's birthday, and the plan. Would be nice if He shared it with me. ;) So we'll take it semi-easy this weekend. Even though I've got the itch to get this house spotless from top to bottom, I need to work on Peanut's baby blanket, I'm close but not close enough to finish it. I wanted Peanut to come home with it. So hopefully the kids and Jessie will be on board to helping get the house ready. We also need to finalize plans for the kids' childcare/sleeping arrangements for once I go up to L & D. Somethings came up this morning, that don't make me comfortable with the arrangements we once had.

God Bless