36

So, here we are at week 36 in the pregnancy. This is, officially, uncharted territory for our family. At this point last time, Lexi was a week old and finally coming off of the ventilator. Since she never dropped, I didn't have the extreme pleasure of knowing that sensation either. Let's just say it this way: if your baby never drops, consider yourself blessed.

I've been having contractions about 20 minutes apart, but not consistently. Many a nurse has made the comment that we'll have the baby early because she is so low. She dropped for the first time about a month ago and has been getting lower and lower. I keep telling everyone who mentions us having the baby early to stop jinxing us. I'm convinced since we've made note of the possibility, we'll go 2 weeks past our due date.

Allen can really see the baby now and we can tell body parts when she's moving. That is pretty cool. Honestly, that's about the only cool thing at this point. Her head is on my nerves (literally) in my pelvis so when she rotates or moves, I get shooting pains. I'm sure most every woman has felt this if she's been pregnant (although I never had this with Lexi). When I stand up from sitting, I have really sharp pains all across the front (it's like my muscles -and don't say "what muscles?"- get bunched up and can't stretch out again so I can be totally upright, very odd) that prevent me from standing up straight. I do the "grandpa hunch" getting around until the pain goes away. It's really attractive, I'm sure.

So it goes with the last month of pregnancy, though. At this point, I'm still in favor of the baby going to term if that means a healthy baby. But, that could rapidly become "get out of there and I'll take the extra sleep while you're in the NICU!!!".