Mrs. Smith

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

I am 35 weeks today! Although half way through the day I'll be 35 weeks, 1 day lol. :P Here's a little info on the baby and me that I got via email. :)

 

 

 

How your life's changing: Your uterus — which was entirely tucked away inside your pelvis when you conceived — now reaches up under your rib cage. If you could peek inside your womb, you'd see that there's more baby than amniotic fluid in there now. Your ballooning uterus is crowding your other internal organs, too, which is why you probably have to urinate more often and may be dealing with heartburn and other gastrointestinal distress. If you're not grappling with these annoyances, you're one of the lucky few.

From here on out, you'll start seeing your practitioner every week. Sometime between now and 37 weeks, she'll do a vaginal and rectal culture to check for bacteria called Group B streptococci (GBS). (Don't worry — the swab is the size of a regular cotton swab, and it won't hurt at all.) GBS is usually harmless in adults, but if you have it and pass it on to your baby during birth, it can cause serious complications, such as pneumonia, meningitis, or a blood infection. Because 10 to 30 percent of pregnant women have the bacteria and don't know it, it's vital to be screened. (The bacteria come and go on their own — that's why you weren't screened earlier in pregnancy.) If you're a GBS carrier, you'll get IV antibiotics during labor, which will greatly reduce your baby's risk of infection.

This is also a good time to create a birth plan. Using our form will help you focus on specifics — like who'll be present, what pain management techniques you want to try, and where you want your baby to stay after you deliver. It will give you a starting point to discuss your preferences with your medical team. Childbirth is unpredictable, and chances are you won't follow your plan to the letter, but thinking about your choices ahead of time — and sharing your preferences with your caregiver — should take some of the anxiety out of the process.

Time for another entry since mommer thinks I need to update this more. :P

 

Nothing new with me really, just same ol', same ol'. I just got done cleaning a whole crapload of dishes, including the 93749374397 dishes I had to use to cook tonight's dinner so that was fun. :) (Not really, but yeah.) I made cream of mushroom chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad. Dinner was good. The baby seemed to enjoy it. :) Usually he moves around and kicks around a little bit when he likes something, so that's how I know. :P Speaking of the baby, only 2 more weeks till I'm officially "full term" and only 5 more weeks till my due date. :D Craziiiiiiiiiiiiiiness. I can't wait to meet my little one and see his little face and his little toes and his little fingers. :) He's going to be a little cutie pie. And I will DEFINITELY have my work cut out for me then, I thought I had it bad now, but nooooooooooo I definitely don't. :( I just can't wait to have my body back again and be able to function like I normally can and I can't wait to hold my baby in my arms, not my big belly. :) Only a few more weeks... :)

I haven't updated this thing in a longggggggggggg time so I thought I should update now. I've been here in Okinawa, Japan since April 12th! So I've been here for a couple weeks now. I'm still somewhat adjusting to the new place but seeing as how I have moved a lot in my lifetime, it's been pretty easy for me. :) The plane rides/waiting time weren't really fun but it was all worth it once I saw my hubs standing there with two bouquets in hand lol (one from him, one from a fellow Army friend of his). :P His two Sgt.'s were there also and one ended up driving us home. I guess they didn't feel too good about letting Stephen drive so far in the city since he hadn't been driving here for very long. :S

 

Everything's been really great with us! It's been nice to see my husband again and to be able to spend time with him, especially since we have only a few more months of alone time together before our little bundle of joy arrives! :) Christian Taylor will be making his debut in late July! But I have a feeling he won't be waiting too long before he comes, I'm guessing mid July he'll be making his debut but we'll see I guess! I have my first overseas Dr.'s appointment tomorrow! I'm hoping I'll like the Dr. and that everything will go well with my appointment. :) I can't wait to hear his heartbeat again, it's been over a month since I last heard it (not counting me listening to his heartbeat via a recording a week or so ago). :P Stephen really seems to get it now, that we're pregnant and soon going to have a baby! He's been really caring and sweet with me since I've been here so that's nice lol. :P He also listens to the baby, I tend to ask him to do this a lot since I'm always curious as to what the baby's doing in there. :P He tells me he hears a lot of "swooshes" as he describes them and he can sometimes even hear a kicking noise when occurs right when I feel the kicking obviously. :P What's funny though, is that a few times when Stephen's put his head on my belly to listen to the baby, the baby's kicks him in the head lol. :D The first time Stephen kinda freaked out about it but after that, he kinda got used to it lol. :)

 

We still haven't gotten our furniture from Texas yet but we should be getting all that shortly, I'm hoping atleast. :) We have some loaner furniture for the time being and I'm definitely looking forward to laying in my bigggggggggg bed again! We'll probably start to buy the baby furniture soon, maybe this weekend or the next. I definitely can't wait to get the whole house situated. :) And that's all I have to update about for now...

Just thought I'd write a new entry to let everyone who actually reads this, in on what's going on around here. My parents are working on the wood flooring today. They're hoping to finish it today before everyone comes over tomorrow for the Superbowl party we're going to be having. Hopefully it'll all get done soon. It's looking nice thus far. Nothing really new going on with me. I've been feeling pretty good for the most part as of late. Everything seems to be going well with my pregnancy. And I can't wait to finally be able to go to the Dr. on the 12th. FINALLY!!! Everything seems to be good with Stephen although it's kinda hard to say since we don't talk very often. He doesn't have a phone over there and has to call me from pay phones. We talked for a couple minutes yesterday though and he seemed to be good. He'll be letting me know all the info I need to know in order to go over there. I already got my overseas paperwork filled out but I have to get some dental form thing filled out and he's gonna find out what form number that is since the Air Force overseas lady on base didn't know. I gotta get my physical which is going to be from the Ob/Gyn appt. I'm going to on the 12th. And then I gotta go pick up my passport which should be arriving anytime now. Hopefully everything will continue to run smoothly. We'll see I guess.