For the most part my pregnancy has been progressing pretty quickly. BUT within the last few weeks or so it seemed to just be at a halt and seemed to be dragging on and on. But now, it's back to the quick progressing seeing as how I'm already 36 weeks now! Well, actually I'm 36 weeks and 3 days along now! That means only 4, well less than that now, days till I'm officially "full term". So that means he'll be ready to come out anytime now!!!

 

Here's a little info on the baby who's now in his 36 weeks of developing. :D

 

How your baby's growing:

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is a little under 19 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position. But if she isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating her from the outside of your belly.

How your life's changing:

Now that your baby is taking up so much room, you may have trouble eating a normal-size meal. Smaller, more frequent meals are often easier to handle at this point. On the other hand, you may have less heartburn and have an easier time breathing when your baby starts to "drop" down into your pelvis. This process — called lightening — often happens a few weeks before labor if this is your first baby. (If you've given birth before, it probably won't happen before labor starts.) If your baby drops, you may also feel increased pressure in your lower abdomen, which may make walking increasingly uncomfortable, and you'll probably find that you have to pee even more frequently. If your baby is very low, you may feel lots of vaginal pressure and discomfort as well. Some women say it feels as though they're carrying a bowling ball between their legs!

You might also notice that your Braxton Hicks contractions are more frequent now. Be sure to review the signs of labor with your practitioner and find out when she wants to hear from you. As a general rule, if you're full-term, your pregnancy is uncomplicated, and your water hasn't broken, she'll probably have you wait to come in until you've been having contractions that last for about a minute each, coming every five minutes for an hour. Of course, you'll want to call right away if you notice a decrease in your baby's activity or think you're leaking amniotic fluid, or if you have any vaginal bleeding, fever, a severe or persistent headache, constant abdominal pain, or vision changes.

Even if you're enjoying an uncomplicated pregnancy, it's best to avoid flying (or any travel far from home) during your final month because you can go into labor at any time. In fact, some airlines won't let women on board who are due to deliver within 30 days of the flight.

 

And as much as I love having my little one inside of me, I am more than ready for him to be out! lol I'm kinda tired of sharing my body with him :( lol. I'd much rather he be in my arms but I am definitely willing to wait a couple more weeks for that since we're not completely ready as of yet.

 

And everything is fine over here, Stephen and I went to a movie tonight, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and it was pretty good. I'd probably say better than the first. And I can't believe how loud they play movies sometimes, I thought I was going to go deaf tonight and seeing as how my ears were almost blown out, I felt bad for my little Christian. :( So no more theater movies for him lol. And although the movie was good and all, I wish the whole movie experience would've been better seeing as how everyone decided to bring their little babies and little children along. Stephen and I both had two kids kicking the back of our chairs, I wanted to scream. I not only had one kid kicking me in the back, but my kid kicking me in the bladder on top of that so that was fun. :P And speaking of pregnancy and fun stuff, some Japanese lady I saw today at the shoppette starting talking to me in Japanese (it's funny how I can fool the Japanese people into thinking I'm Japanese but hardly any Americans are fooled with that :P), and when she realized I couldn't speak Japanese, she said "Baby? When is the baby due?" And I don't know if she's deaf or just dumb or what but she must've not understood that I'm in my last month or something. I told her July 31st and she's like "oh. Twins?" And I laughed it off and said "No, just one!" :P I seriously wanted to deck her though lol. I don't know if she was doing that to be funny or rude or what but who knows. :P I mean I am big, but not THAT big lol. Not twin sized big, that's for sure. I've seen plenty of women who are not as far along as me and are bigger so there! lol So either the lady is a dummy or she didn't realize I'm about to give birth within the next few weeks. :P Either way she made me feel like a fat ass and made me question my hubby a few times on whether or not I really look like I'm carrying twins lol.

 

And oh yeah, we found another gecko in our house (mommer knows what I'm talking about). I don't think I've blogged about finding geckos as of yet but I just remembered todays incident so time to blog about it I guess. We've found like 2 geckos before, all in one night actually, the same day we talked to our neighbor and told them about these chirping noises we had been hearing in our house, and then he informed us they were geckos. Well sadly, that same day, we ended up catching two of them. Weird how that works but yeah lol. I proceeded to lock myself in the bedroom while Stephen took out a Glad container and caught those little guys lol. Well we realized that these geckos aren't to be feared but that we should embrace their prescence in our house since they like to eat spiders and like to eat little ants. And since Okinawa is filled with ants and spiders and lots of other weird things, we shouldn't bother with the geckos 'cause they help us out and we help them out by letting them stay lol. But anyways, back to today's incident. We ended up seeing a little tiny BABY gecko, it was kinda cute. Stephen tried to catch it but he wasn't able to so we just decided, we'll let him stay. I don't mind the geckos as long as they don't bother me and although I prefer them to stay in the ceiling, I guess I won't mind a little baby one roaming around too much as long as it doesn't bother me. I'm sure it'll end up finding it's way back to the ceiling anyways since they love to climb walls and stuff like that. And last night as Stephen and I were sleeping, we woke up to a chirping noise coming from our ceiling or maybe he was just in the room (not sure), we were thinking maybe it was the baby gecko but maybe it was the mommy or daddy gecko, I guess we'll never know. :P

 

So there's my current update for now...be sure to check back soon for other updates. :P