38 weeks down, two to go!

Okay, to be completely honest, I am really hoping that it is less than two weeks to go, but I think that is about how most women feel this far along! Here is my update for my family from this past pregnancy week. Only a few more are to come! Yippee!

I haven't taken a picture of me this week - it has been a crazy, hectic week, so here is one of my favorites from a little while ago. The kids and I went to get a picture done for Daddy when he was starting a new position at work and was getting his own office. We thought he needed a picture of his family to hang up in his office(and since it is worse than pulling teeth to get him to be in a posed family picture) so the kids and I snuck off to Wal-Mart and got their $4.99 special done. Sometimes it is cheaper to do it that way than to take the pictures myself and then have them developed. Plus, this way, I got to be in the picture WITH the kids without having to do any Photoshop magic!

So this week in Hoppy Erick's life not too much has changed. He put on another half a pound or so, got more fat under his skin, and continued to lose the white cottage cheesy covering that has been keeping him water-proof for the past 8 months. He should be averaging at his total length - somewhere around 20-21 inches, and weighs in somewhere around the 6.5 lb mark.

This week when I went to the midwife, I mentioned the sledding tumble I took and asked her to check to make sure he had turned head down again... a simple enough request, I thought. Well, her eyes sort of popped out of her head and she went into a nice tirade of what a foolish idea it was for me to go sledding. And didn't I know what could have happened? And if I wanted to do that sort of thing I needed to wait until the week AFTER the baby came, but that my feet should stay firmly planted on solid ground until that time. And so on... So, on the way home from this lecture, I mean appointment, Scott calls and says the neighbors are waiting for me to get home so the kids and I can go sledding with them! I regretfully had to decline... but on the up side, they still took the kids and I got to go grocery shopping all by myself!

At this appointment when she checked me I was dilated to a solid 3, was thinning out, and softening, and the baby was at a -2 position (for those of you who know what that means - for the rest of us, the baby starts being at positive positions when he is coming out, so a 0 is crowning and a -2 means he isn't quite low enough!) So not much changing going on. After the appointment I had an evening of fairly intense contractions, but they eased up once I got home and laid down. She also took some more blood to check my thyroid again - it went Hyper with this baby and has been giving me some problems. So I will find out how those results turned out this Wednesday when I go for my next visit. She also said I was Group B Strep positive, which just means that I will get and IV antibiotic when I go to the hospital to make sure Hoppy doesn't get it when he is born. It's no big deal, I was positive with it before with Garrett, then with Owen they went ahead and gave me the antibiotics since I had been positive previously; and out here they only give them to you if you are positive each time. The midwife was a little sad for me that it meant that I would definitely need an IV, but I assured her that I was already lined up for having one because I want an epidural!

So that is that. I am still large, and still not in charge! This little guy is trying to start thinking about getting prepared to be ready to come, but he has his head resting on my bone and he can't seem to drop. I spent a good couple of hours walking around the neighborhood with the kids today after church because I was having contractions every 7 minutes. But I was getting tired and didn't really want to go into labor with no energy left, so I headed home and put my feet up. The contractions slowed down (like they always do!) and are only one or two an hour... so no trip to the hospital tonight! My sister has the philosophy that if you absolutely slow down the week or so before the baby comes (which is nearly impossible to do with other kids around!) that he will come easier and better and that the recovery will be so much easier as well. I did that with Owen and it really was a much shorter recoup time than my other two. Maybe I should just slow down with this guy and see where that takes me! Until then, I guess I will make school assignment sheets for the other kids for this week and go on with life as normal!