29 days!

Holy balls. I'm due to have this baby in 29 days. 29. It seems unreal. With holidays and birthdays and baby showers time has flown by over the past couple months.

It's been an eventful 35th week. On Monday, after a great weekend of a baby shower and catching up with a great friend (Hi L, I know you read this and I love that you came to stay with me) we were out running couple errands and took the kids out to lunch. When we got home I went into the bathroom and had some bleeding. Needless to say I flipped the eff out. I called my doctor, for those of you that may want to know, ****TMI ALERT*** it was a few quarter sized amounts of frank red blood. Anyway, he told me to go to labor and delivery at the hospital and he would call them to tell them I was on my way. When I got there I hadn't had anymore bleeding, so they hooked me up to the monitor and watched me for about 30 minutes to make sure baby was doing ok. She was moving all around, her heart rate was fine, and I was having contractions, but they remained painless.

After I got all checked out, he sent me home and scheduled me an appointment for the following day (yesterday). At my appointment he tried to figure out what caused the bleeding. We did an ultrasound and everything looked fine. He even amused me and printed some 3D shots of the baby's face which was so cool. What it looked like happened was that up until this day the baby had not been head down. She had been "transverse" which means she was laying horizontally across my belly. If she would have stayed here I would have likely had to have a c-section. But, as of yesterday she was head down. And she is very head down, her head is already engaged in my pelvis. So, he thinks that when she turned it irritated my cervix and caused the bleeding. My cervix has barely begun the thinning out process (called effacement) that happens before you start dilating. So, I'm not going into labor at this point. But, if I did, he would not stop me. I'm 36 weeks tomorrow so I am close enough.

Of course, I don't want her to come out yet. Last year, the standard for "full term" changed from 37 weeks to 39 weeks. It used to be that doctors allowed for scheduled c-sections and inducements anytime between 37-42 weeks. That five week block was considered "full term." Now, because they've discovered that fetal outcomes are improved if they "cook" til 39 weeks, 39-41 weeks is considered "full term," 37-39 weeks is "early term" and 41-42 weeks is "late term." They no longer will schedule a c-section or a labor induction until 39 weeks unless there is a risk to the mom or baby (for example high blood pressure, etc).

So, she can just hold tight. My doctor told me that the only "bad news" is that I am going to be pretty uncomfortable now that she is head down in my pelvis. And he is right. I get pelvic pain a lot, it's tough to get comfortable at this point anyway. But, I'm OK with it. As long as she is growing healthy I can deal with a little discomfort. Just like as long as she is content once she's born I'll deal with the fact that my arm is numb because she is resting on it, or that I'm so exhausted I cannot see straight because she kept me awake all night. This is motherhood. It is uncomfortable at times. Especially when the little nugget is crowning and I'm trying to push her out! Ha :)