34 Weeks

Greetings from the longest pregnancy ever!!!! There is something so strange about being pregnant almost an entire calendar year. But, that was the plan so no complaints there (at least none that I will document here).

 

We had our 34 week checkup yesterday. I have about 7 pounds until I hit where I was with my final weight with Annie. I feel like this baby is just a huge ball right out front, which now makes it necessary for me to sport a belly band under all my clothes, lest people get a peek at the underside of ye ol' bump. 

 

Belly Band hiding about 4 inches of what would be exposed skin in most of my maternity shirts.

 

The logical solution would be to buy new shirts, but I absolutely refuse to spend one more cent on maternity clothes. My advice to any new moms is to stock up on your maternity basics early. Maybe even when you are trying to get pregnant. Just buy it and wear it and get your money's worth. Sure, you will look like a crazy person, but think of how comfy you will be with all that spandex and billowy fabric floating around you. Hear me out.

 

The temptation is to try to wear your "normal" clothes as long as possible. This will inevitably backfire because you WILL get to a point where those clothes don't fit and it's time to cuddle up with an elastic waistband. In reality, you probably should have stopped wearing your normal clothes about 5 weeks ago, but you were determined to make it work. By this point you are 25 weeks in and you start thinking, "well, I just have 15 more weeks, I don't want to buy a bunch of clothes for that short of a period of time." So you think it's ok to just have a few shirts and a few pairs of pants. And you will wear these same shirts and pants every damn day for what will seem like an eternity and you will feel like crap and daydream about your normal wardrobe and loathe getting dressed every morning in your gray/black/brown/darker gay cotton t-shirt and jeans. So buy all that crap early and wear it out, pregnant or not. If someone asks you why you are wearing maternity clothes if you are not pregnant, just wink and say "you never know!" or "just in case!" or something equally vague and bizarre and that should be the end of that conversation.

 

But back to where we are with the pregnancy....two more weeks until John is no longer considered premature. Two more weeks until we start going every week for checkups. He's about 20 inches long and about 5 pounds. Annie was 20 inches long when she was born, so he's about as long as he's going to be, he just needs to plump up a bit. We think he's head down, but arms and legs are sunny side up, when they should be facing down (ideally). Dr. J says that's an easy flip to make so he's not worried about it. We will confirm his position at the 36 week checkup. My belly was measuring at 35 weeks at this visit, but Annie always measured a bit ahead, if I recall correctly.

 

I organized his clothes this weekend and we have a fairly respectable wardrobe for the little fella from newborn through 2 years, thanks to some generous loaner clothes from Team Botanical and some co-workers. We got the swing, bouncer, play gym, and bassinette back from my friend and those are all ready for action. We'll probably get the car seat out after the next appointment. His crib is all ready to go and only sometimes is used as a storage facility for Annie's dress-up clothes.

 

42 days to go!