37 Weeks

Feeling: I'm feeling large, exhausted, and sore! I guess what a woman at full term should feel like! ;) My legs are very sore at the end of a long workday and it is harder to concentrate on all my paperwork because I get so exhausted by the end of the day too. I'm very lucky my patients aren't requiring a lot of physical help, but still my workday is long and exhausting hauling around the extra weight. I still take the stairs for the exericse, but even that is getting harder having to lift the extra weight around. For some reason, my back is only sore first thing in the morning...I'm still most comfortable walking or moving around than laying around, which is weird I guess. At my doc appt this week the doc said I was 1 cm dilated, she could feel the baby's head, and my cervix was soft, but I'm not getting my hopes up for an early delivery. **WARNING** About to get graphic.......

Ok, are you ready??

Are you sure??

I think I passed my mucus plug today at work, which was weird, but I guess had to happen to get labor going! It looked like a congealed ball of snot, yuck! I can feel the baby's head down in my pelvis,it feels like pressure on my lower abdomen which squashes my bladder, but I haven't had any problems with "leakage" even when laughing or blowing my nose thank goodness. I keep working on those pelvic floor exercises! The doctor also recommended that we keep our love life extra active these upcoming weeks, because the chemicals in semen stimulate labor...but with baby's head making its appearance, mucus plugs, and 30 pounds of belly staring you in the face, its not exactly "sexy" hahaha but we're trying our best! I still feel most of the kicking on the right side and sometimes I feel like the baby's foot is up inside my ribs on the right, so when I sit and lean forward, it really pulls at my ribs and I hope I'm not hurting baby's foot! The room is definitely running out in there!

Weight: 153 lbs

Fun Facts About Week 37: Congratulations! You've got what is officially considered a full term baby, even with three weeks to go. That doesn't mean he's finished growing — in fact, he's still packing on about a half pound a week (at this age, the average fetus weighs about 6.5 pounds). That makes it a little crowded in your uterus, so he’s probably not kicking as much, though he’s probably stretching, rolling a bit, and wiggling (all of which you’ll be able to feel!). Right now, your little superstar is busy rehearsing for his big debut, inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid (to get the lungs ready for that first breath), sucking his thumb (to prepare for that first suckle of milk), blinking, and turning from side to side.

Your body is going through its own preparations for childbirth as your practitioner starts looking for signs of labor. On the checklist: the baby's position in relation to your pelvis (engagement) and whether effacement (thinning of the cervix) and dilation (opening of the cervix) have begun. Your practitioner may also determine whether your cervix has begun to soften and move to the front of the vagina, another indication that labor is getting closer. Keep in mind that these processes can occur gradually (over a period of weeks or even a month or more in some women) or overnight. So while they're clues that you're indeed progressing, they're far from sure bets when it comes to pinpointing the actual start of labor.

I am very proud of the fact that I have thusfar avoided stretch marks, so I took a couple pics of my actual belly (no photoshop) if you were ever interested in seeing what a full term preggo belly looks like after lots and lots of Bump Butter....hahaha! ;)