36 weeks

How your baby's growing:  Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds and is more than 18 1/2 inches long (about the size of a head of romaine lettuce). He's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected his skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, which will form the contents of his first bowel movement.

How mom is changing:  Now that your baby is taking up so much room, you may have trouble eating a normal-size meal. (Um, no.) Smaller, more frequent meals are often easier to handle at this point. On the other hand, you may have less heartburn and have an easier time breathing when your baby starts to "drop" down into your pelvis.

Most recent doctor’s appointment: I went yesterday for my 36-week appointment. Between weeks 32 and 34, I gained 4 pounds (thanks to holiday eating and less exercise); between weeks 34 and 36, I gained 2 pounds. I hope the trend continues and I don’t gain more than half the previous weight by my next appointment, especially since my next appointment is only a week away instead of two.

When the doctor was checking the baby’s heartbeat, it apparently spiked up to 180. She was concerned enough to have me stay for 15 minutes of continuous monitoring. Luckily, the heart rate was totally normal, ranging from 140ish to 155ish, so the doctor finally let me go.

The good news from the appointment is the baby is head down. And I guess this is general news, but I’m apparently 1 cm dilated.

How I’m feeling: Sleeping could be better, but other than that I can’t really complain. I still have the lower back pain after hard workouts or too much vacuuming, but I generally feel really good. There’s the occasional bout of acid reflux and I’m tired by the end of the day, but I’m not utterly exhausted too often.

Workouts: I’m still trying to work out as intensely as I can handle, but I had a busy couple of weeks so I didn’t get to the Y as often as I would’ve liked. I took PHX (Power Hour Extreme, which is like P90X) this past Monday and I think it might’ve been my last class until after the baby. I could handle the actual class with some modifications, but my back hurt pretty bad soon after and through the night AND the next morning. It’s just not worth that pain to say, “I took PHX all the way up til…”

Food cravings/aversions: Nothing new here. Pass the carbs please.

Sleep: I don’t always fall asleep right away these days, but I do more often than not. However, if I get more than 2.5 to 3 hours of sleep before I wake up the first time, it’s a good night. I would say I wake up an average of 6 times a night. Half the time, I can go back to sleep pretty easily but the other half when I can’t… Ugh, those nights suck.

Movement: The McBaby is still really active. I think he sometimes stretches so that he’s pushing on both sides of my torso, but for the most part, I feel him on the right side of my body. Oh, and he gets the hiccups a lot, which I find annoying.

Belly button in or out: Just the top half is out a bit.

Rings on or off: On and fitting fine.

Recent fun or interesting things: My baby shower! It was awesome. I loved seeing all my friends and the theme was so much fun. My hostesses did such an amazing job and I so appreciate all their hard work. Plus we previewed the nursery before it got torn apart again so the McHusband could finish adding the boards to the walls.

Also, two of my Y friends brought me gifts. While those were fun in and of themselves (I mean, who doesn’t like presents, right?), it was just so sweet of them to think of us and to want to get us something to celebrate our baby.

New baby items: Too many to list: clothes, the diaper pail (Thanks, Leigh!), lots of great books for the bookshelf, essential bath items (Thanks, Chelle!), and a scrapbook that’s more or less done minus the pictures of the McBaby (Thanks, Carrie and Alicia!).

Miss anything? I miss sleeping on my stomach. I miss vacuuming, my favorite chore, without hurting during and/or afterward. I miss eating at Subway for lunch every Wednesday. I miss boot camp.