The final countdowwwnnn

Hi! It's nearly baby time here!

38 weeks and headed to the pool. I do have a maternity bathing suit but my belly was literally too large for it.

I did take off the socks eventually. 

I have an induction date set for next week at about 39 1/2 weeks, because it turns out that the sono confirmed not just the extra fluid sitch and that I have a bit of a porker in there, but also that the doctors are "concerned" about the size of this kid's head. By which they mean my ability to get said head out of me with one or both of us remaining intact, if I let him cook much longer. So that's super reassuring and I can't wait to see what that means for my labor and delivery! Haha! (weep)

In the meantime, I have finally reached the "OK, this is finally getting pretty not ideal" stage of pregnancy. But dudes, it took all the way to 38 weeks this time! That's not bad. And it's still only small potato complaints compared to last time. When I get up from the couch these days, my hips and lower back need about 30 seconds to resolve into a non-spasming mess, until which time I waddle-shuffle like a 90 year old lady. But I mean... the spasms do stop and then I'm fine. I can still bend down and lean over and pick up Juliette. My ankles remain normal sized. Things are fine, is what I'm saying.

The only two real complaints with this late-stage pregnancy have been that same pain under my ribs again, and heartburn to end all heartburn. Like, wake up with stabbing chest pains, dart frantically out of meetings to acquire Tums level heartburn. But dude, it turns out Tums are MAGICAL. How can that little disc of flavored chalk stop heartburn pain SO immediately and so effectively!? It's astounding! However, after strongly considering DIYing some sort of ill-advised hip holster for my Tums bottle to make sure I had them nearby at all times, it occurred to me that perhaps there is some sort of upper limit to the number of Tums one should consume daily. So I googled it and.. well. The suggested max per day was the MINIMUM I was consuming. Every day. So my OB gently suggested I pick up a bottle of Pepcid instead and just take 2 of those a day, and HOLY COW THIS STUFF IS EVEN BETTER THAN TUMS, YOU GUYS! I haven't taken ANY Tums at all since my new Pepcid love affair. I love problems that are solved this easily.

Less compliant is this pain in my upper abs. Last pregnancy, I thought it was my abs literally ripping apart because that is legit what it feels like. It's awful. However! This time around I'm seeing a different chiropractor, and when the pain started several weeks ago she explained that it's actually due to my ribs being compressed by my giant child. The muscles start to spasm because my ribs are out of place, and the fascia between my ribs gets.. bad? angry? stuck? I'm not sure. But earlier in my pregnancy she'd do an adjustment, then spend some time aggressively massaging the fascia between my ribs to loosen it back up and have it chill out. It hurt, but it was a good hurt, and was super worth it because it definitely helped keep the overall pain level way down.

The problem now is that the child has apparently compressed my ribs to a point where she can't fit her fingers between them to massage out the angry fascia any more. So she can give me an adjustment, and use a tool to poke around in between my smushed ribs a bit, and do some e-stim, but it's not quite as effective as it was when she was manually manipulating the heck out of that space every 2 weeks to try and de-anger it.  But it's STILL better than last pregnancy, because I am still getting some form of treatment for it (and started much earlier on the treatment) and now I am retroactively so bummed that I accepted that much pain last time around when it turns out it was something I maybe could have alleviated a little more. Oh well.

Long story short, I am a day shy of 39 weeks and I still feel better than I did for my entire 3rd trimester last time, and I am incredibly appreciative of that. I still even work out ("work out") once a week! (I mean. I basically stretch and do some balance work and then strength train my arms and back. BUT STILL.)

I did finally pack a hospital bag, and make a list of things I should probably write down more formally on a "birth preferences" card for the nurses (I don't write a Birth Plan because I firmly believe the one thing you can be 100% sure of for birth is that you can't plan what happens), and the baby's room is mostly ready. My mom is coming down this weekend so we have someone to stay with Juliette when we head to the hospital Tuesday night for the induction prep. (I'll be curious to see if the prep meds put me into active labor again this time around!) Now we just need to settle on a name for this kid and by this time next week, we'll be a 2-child household (!!!)