36 Weeks

I was planning on posting this a few days ago but I forgot. GK and I have been working on the nursery and it's been keeping us busy. Well, he's mostly working on the nursery for me and I go buy stuff for it. We've got everything we need for the room, now it's just a matter of putting it all up and organizing everything. We're not even close to being done so I think it's a good thing the baby will be sleeping downstairs with us for a while before we move him/her into the nursery.

From the books:

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 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.

We are now onto our weekly doctors appointment and had our first one on Tuesday. As of now I'm 75% effaced, 1cm dilated and the doctor estimated that the baby is head down and about 6lbs already! Now this doesn't mean much and doesn't mean I'll be having this baby early, but it does mean my body is headed in the right direction. Thankfully! I've not noticed any dropping of the baby yet. I still get really winded so I think the baby is in the same place he/she's always been. Maybe next weeks pics will show some movement of the bump...