Full Term!!

Yesterday marked 37 weeks for me and baby!!!! That officially puts me at FULL TERM - which means that if I go into labor (which I'm totally not expecting to do for at least another 3 weeks) they won't try to stop me and I can have this baby any time now!!!! I had an appointment with Merrie last Thursday and she said that everything looks great ... as usual. She said he is definitely head down, but his head isn't terribly low at this point. She said that his heartbeat was great! He is always sleeping or resting when she checks on him so his heart rate is usually low. She likes to poke at him a bit to get him "excited" so his heart rate will accelerate. He's a pretty mellow guy, but after some persistent poking his heart rate picked up nicely and Merrie was happy with his response. Merrie also felt around for a bit to see if she could determine his size. She said he doesn't feel like a big baby, he feels pretty average. Good news for this mama!!!

I am now seeing Merrie every week. Next week she is bringing her assistants with her to our house so she can see where everything is and make sure we have everything we need. We received our birth supply list a few weeks ago and have done our shopping so we should be prepared for birth day at this point!!!! I've been having a lot of really strong (and irritatingly uncomfortable) Braxton-Hicks for the last few weeks. Just this past week I've also started having real contractions. Merrie says I have an "irritable uterus" so she has told me about a tea I can drink that should un-irritate my uterus so my uterus can stop irritating me!!!! I'm interested to see if that will work. I have also started seeing a chiropractor twice a week. I had been having some pretty severe lower back pain and it was making it very hard for me to function and get through the day with the kids. I was told about a chiropractor in town who specializes in pregnancy and infants and he is amazing!! Since I've started seeing him I've had more energy and less back pain!!! Next week he will start to align me so that things are in the best position for birth. Most of his clients have a less-than-6-hour labor, so I'm hopeful that my labor will be short and "easy" (is there such a thing)? He works closely with Merrie (she's the one who gave me the referral) and if for some reason my labor stalled or the baby got tweaked and wouldn't come out, he would come to my house to align me and, in most cases, I'm told, the baby comes quickly after that. So, I'm happy to have this extra resource in case of a "situation".

I was determined to get a belly pic this weekend to post, but I always forgot until I was in my p.j.'s or had no make up on, so I'm going to work on that this week.

I also had my baby shower yesterday! It was a great time with some of my closest friends. There wasn't a whole lot that we needed, but thanks to the generosity of my wonderful friends we are officially baby-ready!!!