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Week 37 ~ October 3, 2004
~ Expectations
I've forgotten to mention that we've finally decided on names for this baby! Since Charon is named after my mom, we wanted to go with Pete's side of the family this time. That's all I'm going to say right now... I'll let the name be a surprise to anyone reading this, just like the boy/girl mystery. Not too much longer to wait!
I've been going to weekly prenatal yoga classes, and have been enjoying them a lot. It takes some work to get psyched up to go, but once I'm there, it feels so good. My instructor from this spring and summer is on leave right now, so we have a new teacher for the fall. Her style is different, which is to be expected with yoga teachers. She's much slower-paced and we do a lot of the relaxation stuff, which works well for me right now, at the end of my pregnancy. I do miss a few of the things we did with the other instructor, and I'm thinking I might try to work them into my routine at home.
I've started to have more energy again, and it feels good to do some nesting! We are having the ceilings in our living and dining rooms repainted, so that's made it pretty hectic here this past week. We took everything out of those two rooms, and now we can just put back what we really want in those living spaces.
We had the first official meeting with our doula last week, and that was really neat. We talked through a birth plan, and she lent me a birthing ball to sit on and a book: The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. She also gave me a few lists of great questions to think about concerning birth, comfort measures, and expectations for the early days of parenting. They may give me fuel for my last few journal entries! They will definitely help us in writing our birth plan.
One evening, I took a nice warm bath, and tried relaxing back into the tub. My belly stuck way out, and I was pretty uncomfortable, but I could see Penguin moving around so I waited a bit to watch. Suddenly, it felt like the baby shifted completely, moving from one side of my body to the other. I watched arms and legs pressing against my skin, felt this baby squirm inside of me. I worked to sit myself up again, then felt to be sure the position Penguin was in was still head-down. I thought I could feel the feet poking on one side - the opposite side that I was used to, but that was still okay.
Later, I felt lots of pressure down low. Sitting on the couch was uncomfortable, and I had to keep getting up to go to the bathroom. I decided to settle in on the birth ball, and that helped some. There wasn't so much pressure on my lower back, and I was encouraged to sit forward rather than lean back.
At my 36-week midwife appointment, I asked if the baby could have shifted from one side to the other. She felt my belly, and sure enough, she guessed the same position now that I did. Head still down, thank goodness. She said, "Well, the baby still has some room to move in there, so it will probably be a bit longer." She checked my cervix, and said I was about a fingertip dilated. "You are just as I would expect for 36 weeks." I am getting so anxious to meet this baby, partly because Charon arrived 12 days before her due date, but it appears I need to be ready for this one to stay inside until at least 40 weeks. That's okay - I've got lots of nesting I can do before then! Now that I've got a bit more energy, I'd like to take advantage of it.
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