I had a great appointment today at 38 weeks pregnant.  I can’t believe I’m so close!

At my appointment last week, at 37 weeks pregnant, my OB said that she would rather him come anytime after 38 weeks.  I asked her why since I thought that 37 weeks was full-term.  (Of course my preference would be for him to stay put until closer to 40 weeks.)

She said that while it is full-term, in her experience, little white babies born at 37 weeks are usually wimpy (ex, they don’t breastfeed well, they have trouble breathing at times, etc).

Of course I asked her what babies do the best and she said that African American boys do the best, then African American girls.  Clearly she’s just talking about her own experience delivering babies, but I thought that it was interesting.

Now that I’m 38 weeks pregnant the chances of our son being “wimpy” have gone down.  Yay!

Pregnancy Weight: 38 weeks of pregnancy is being kind to me!  I stayed the same weight as last week.  This actually amazes me considering how much dessert I’ve had lately.  It’s been at least daily, sometimes twice a day.  I told Tarzan that it would be so nice to be able to be skinny and have dessert daily without worrying about weight.  Too bad that I’m not that kind of girl though.

Blood Pressure: 95/58

Baby’s Heartbeat: Started off in the 130′s and then was in between the 140′s and 150′s.

Baby’s Position: Head down.  He’s not going anywhere!  Right where he needs to be at pregnancy week 38.

Weeks my belly is measuring at: 37.5 weeks.  She said that he has clearly dropped and that’s the reason for this measurement.

Internal: Just a teeny tiny bit more pressure than the last two times, but nothing to write about.  There was a little bitty spot of blood on the glove when she removed her hand, so she said not to worry if there is a little spotting in my panties.

Internal stats: 80% effaced still.  Cervix OPEN.  -1 station.  Dilated 1 cm.  (Now I know that these stats do not mean that I’m going into labor any time soon, but I still think it’s cool that my cervix is finally open.  I bet it was due to sex that we had.  I wanted to have sex and then see if my cervix would be open by the time of my appointment.  Hmm.)

Baby’s Momma: I’m doing wonderful and enjoying being 38 weeks pregnant!  I have so much energy and am still sleeping well at night.  My anxiety is dropping for the most part (thank you Benadryl) and I’m so excited to get closer and closer to my due date.  I’ve been out with friends a lot this week and have had fun, knowing that hanging out like that might not be the easiest thing to swing in the next few weeks/months.

Stretch Marks: Not a one.

Belly Button: In, but you can see the inside when you look in the hole.  Also, my belly button hole has stretched beyond belief.  It looks really funny.  Could not have imagined if I would have ever gotten a tattoo on my lower hip.  It would be HUGE by now.

Next appointment: July 17th.

Big milestones this week: Having the final dressed up date night with my husband before we are parents to a living human, which is really crazy to think about.

38 weeks pregnant and yes, the emotions still running high.  In the car last night, as we were driving to the restaurant, I was just thinking about how much life will change when our baby is here and I got tears in my eyes.  Not sad ones, but happy and excited ones.  I’ve really come a long way from when I initially found out that I was pregnant.  I’m a whole new girl now, and while I can’t wait to meet our little guy, it’s also crazy to think about our life changing so much so soon.  Nine months really isn’t a long time at all – It goes by so quickly.  I am so glad that Tarzan and I got to have a nice date last night.

We went to a great place for dinner and then saw the Phantom of the Opera.  We had a wonderful dinner, complete with a great dessert, and then sat back in our seats to watch the Opera.

Oh, and an extra plus was that people were totally smiling at me while looking at my bump.  It made me feel really good.  One lady even gushed over me and told me that I was so gorgeous over and over.  I told her to “keep on going”.  No joke.  LOL.  I did feel really pretty and it was a great compliment to get from a stranger.

(I even got 2 compliments in the waiting room at my OB’s office today.  Maybe you just have to hit the 38 weeks pregnant mark to get continuous compliments… or maybe they just felt sorry for me being so pregnant.  I’m going to go with the first option!)

My labor pregnancy dream: So last night I had a dream…  about labor.  It was my first ever dream about labor and I’m thinking that I need to pack that damn hospital bag now, just like I promised my husband.  It wasn’t a bad dream at all, perhaps just a sign letting me know that I need to get my ass in gear about the bag.

Tarzan and I were at home and my water broke.  While waiting for my OB to call us back, we packed our hospital bags and then took off to the hospital.

Then I woke up.  The bed was dry.

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Last night was one of those nights.  

You know the kind I’m talking about, you know, the kind where you try really, really hard to fall asleep and you just can’t.  

Or you continuously toss and turn.  

Or you wake up in the middle of the night because you swear you hear someone just open the back door, even though the alarm did not make a noise.  

Or you remember your friend telling you a story about that ghost she once saw that was dressed in all black and you expect to see the very same thing each time you open your eyes.

You know the kind of night I’m talking about.

That was how my night went and it was no fun.  And on top of it I had a slightly disturbing pregnancy dream that had me up before it could end in a good way.  

In my dream I was in labor.  It wasn’t bad at all.  Pretty simply actually.  Then all of a sudden when I started to push the baby’s heart rate started to drop.  This worried my OB so she decided to do an emergency C-section to make sure that everything was okay with the little babe.  

Someone wheeled me into another room where the C-section would take place, but then everything was delayed.  No one started to do anything.  I was just laying on the table waiting for something to happen, or someone to tell me that they were going to start soon… but nothing.

I was so worried about my baby’s heart rate and no one could tell me what was going on.  My OB kept making up excuses as to why she hadn’t started the procedure.  The worst part was that I felt completely helpless and couldn’t understand why people weren’t helping me.

There was a girl in the bed next to me who came in after I did, but was finished almost immediately with her C-section.  I was really irritated in my dream and when I woke up I just felt like I’d have an off day today.  Yuck.

Let’s just all keep our fingers (and toes) crossed that my labor and delivery all goes smoothly and that I never feel neglected by anyone that should be helping me out.

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Last night I remember three of the pregnancy dreams that I had.  One was scary, one was just plain weird, and the last one was happy.  Yay, finally a happy dream while pregnant in the second trimester!  

We’ll start with the first pregnancy dream I had: The scary one.

This dream involved my husband abusing me.  He pulled me by my hair out of my bed and dragged me onto the floor.  Luckily I woke up from this scary pregnancy dream and I don’t know what happened after he got me on the floor.  Such a weird dream considering my husband would never do anything like this to me.  Although it was purely a nightmare, it was pretty awful and quite disturbing.

The second pregnancy dream involved my husband, an ex-boyfriend, my dad, and myself.  

Weird combination, right?  

Basically I went to visit an ex-boyfriend while my husband and I were out of town.  It was purely friendly and because I was bored, but my dad suddenly appeared and made it into a huge deal, which left me feeling bad for no reason.  Makes no sense.

The third pregnancy dream was the best one.  

I was at church with my mom.  At first I looked down at my left hand and my wedding band and engagement ring were missing.  Of course I was freaking out and my mom found my rings on the floor in our pew.  Whew!  Then it was time for communion.  I had to wait in a long line before it was finally my turn.  When I finally reached the front of the line, a nun was waiting for me.

She asked me to put my fingertips together, to form a point, and stretch my arms as high as they would go.  I did, but since she was short, she asked me to lower my arms a little.  She drew an invisible line with her fingers from the point I’d made with my fingers down my chest and to my stomach.  

She said, “You are 28 years old and you live in Houston.  You are pregnant!  3 months, no 4 months pregnant.  You are going to have a very happy and healthy pregnancy.  You need to stop worrying about all the other things.  Everything will work out.  Oh, and I know that you don’t have maternity insurance.  Just remember what I said – Everything will be okay.”  

Then she blessed my stomach and I walked back to the pew.

After church I was walking on the playground and I saw her on the other side of the field.  I yelled, “Hey, wait up.  I want to ask you something.”  She waited and I was running and running to catch up to her.  I wanted to ask what the sex of the baby is… and that’s when I woke up.  Ha ,ha.  Go figure!

This last pregnancy dream was the best!  It was simple, but left me feeling really good about being pregnant and knowing that God is on my side and will help me through all of this.  I found my dream to be awesome.  

In fact, when I woke up from this last pregnancy dream, I told Tarzan about all three of the dreams.  When I was done telling the last pregnancy dream, I had tears in my eyes.  It was just that kind of dream that leaves you with such a great feeling!

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