38 Weeks

Is it really?! 38 weeks?!

I know we are being incredibly inpatient, but Ava, darling...we are wanting you to join us so badly!!

I have been feeling a lot of different emotions this week, and they usually come in this order:

Excitement.

I can't wait for Ava to be here, to see her eyes, to hold her, to admire her hair, to watch her while she sleeps, to watch her daddy with her. This wait has to be one of the most unbearable waits ever! The house is full of baby things, just sitting...waiting. I find myself spending a lot of time just staring at them, imagining what Ava will be doing in each of these baby things, what she will look like in the car seat carrier, which motion on the swing she will prefer, and I can even visualize her flailing arms and legs when she will get her diaper changed on the changer (for some reason I am imagining her hating getting her diaper changed!). So much eager anticipation! I think about how exciting these changes will be. And then that thought easily leads into:

Fear.

Oh crap, pretty soon nothing will be the same. Will I be ready? Are we prepared? What if I don't know what to do? I'm pretty sure these are all normal feelings, and at this point, it's more of me second-guessing myself. Of course I'm ready. Heck, we've been waiting on Ava for over 4 years, so I've been mentally preparing myself for motherhood for a very long time. I think I just have too much time to think about it! Once I'm done rationalizing with myself, then this feeling sets in:

Calmness.

I look around our house. We are ready. We've done all the necessary preparations. I'm down to just a few final cleaning/organizing items on the to-do list. It's like the calm before the storm - we've done all we can, now we wait. I have to say, I've been the happiest I've ever been over these last several months. I can feel it in our marriage, too. I haven't turned into "preggo-zilla", in fact, it has been quite the opposite for me. 

I feel so, so, so fortunate to have had such a wonderful pregnancy despite my diagnoses of PCOS and a bicornuate uterus. Even if Ava decides to wait until 40 weeks (or beyond), I will still be so thankful and grateful for this blessing.

Ava has been doing some movements over the past few weeks that I haven't quite been able to figure out what she's doing. It's a very rhythmic movement, like a hiccup, that's not as forceful but a bit quicker in frequency. I know she's not actually breathing in there, but that's what it seemed like she was doing - breathing! I only see it on my right side where her legs are, and I have had a hard time believing that she is really that rhythmically tapping her foot. I have been googling it for a bit and all I could come across was the explanation that babies don't breathe in the womb...until I read this article (scroll to the section headed "Breathing Practice and Surfactant"). Makes total sense! Since she is all folded up knees to chest in there, with this practice breathing, if she is in fact expanding her belly, that would press on her legs and make them "pulse" on my upper right side.

She must be getting her lungs ready for screaming. :)

We had an appointment this afternoon.

Ava is going to make us wait.

She is still head down, so that's good news!

There really isn't any bad news, just not what we were hoping to hear!

She is not far down enough to cause any changes/progress, so no dilation or anything yet.

She was in the 43rd percentile for size and there was still a bit of swelling in her kidney. So when she is born, they will do an ultrasound on her belly to get a closer look.

So, here's the "plan".

The csection is still scheduled for next Friday. I have an appointment the day before to determine if it will be necessary. If she rotates out of head down, we will continue with the csection. Otherwise, we will wait for signs of labor! I will ask at what point we will induce.

It's been quite a ride over these last 9 months, Ava, and now we are ready to meet you! Don't take too long!!