37 Weeks! Only 3 More To Go!

Baby's now the size of a watermelon!

Your full-term (yay!) baby is gaining about 1/2 ounce a day and getting her first sticky poop (called meconium) ready. She's also brushing up on skills for the outside world: blinking, sucking, inhaling, exhaling, and gripping (it's getting strong!).

Hi everyone,

Amazingly, I'm already at 37 weeks today and we only have 3 weeks to go (assuming Kyra arrives around my February 21st due date and not earlier). Time is definitely flying by now! The doctor says the latest they'd let me deliver is up to 1 week after my due date, so it'll be 4 more weeks at max. During our check-up last week, Kyra was still head-down and right where she needs to be. I'm feeling pretty good, although I've been feeling a lot of pelvic pressure and have been much more tired lately. Still no real contractions, as far as I can tell, although I have been feeling Braxton Hicks contractions for a while. The house is basically ready to go, with the exception of some cleaning and a few more little things that need to be taken care of. Now that Geoff is done grading finals, I hope he's up for the challenge of helping with these last few to-do's.

I've put together most of the items I'll need to pack for the hospital, and just need to put them in a bag or suitcase. I've picked out a few tiny outfits to bring for Kyra! It was impossible to choose just one! Now Geoff needs to get his own stuff packed, and then we'll have the last minute items to collect just before we leave for the hospital. I told Geoff that tomorrow he needs to start keeping the ringer on his cell phone turned on (normally he just has it on "vibrate"), since you never know when I might need to call him and tell him "it's time." Or, perhaps a line from one of our favorite movies (Juno) is a bit more fitting: "Thundercats are GO!!!!"

Today, Shaunna and I took some maternity photos with our friend Selen from high school. I'm looking forward to seeing those! I'm sure she and I will both post some of those when we get them. In the meantime, I'll try to get Geoff to take some more belly shots during these last few weeks (if we actually even have that long left!). It's still so hard to believe that Kyra will be here soon! I'm sure it won't take too long to feel like she's always been here!