Baby Ball: Week 38

The end is near! I had a great doctor's visit yesterday and am looking forward to meeting our little girl in the next several days. I gained four more pounds, bringing my total gain to 26 pounds. I'm pretty proud of that number, but still a little in shock that I've gained eight pounds in just the past two weeks! All that ice cream must be doing it's job! The doctor said I have dilated some and am looking favorable to deliver soon, which was awesome news! She couldn't tell for sure if Maleah was head down, so we got to have an ultrasound and see this little kiddo's skull one last time. We didn't get to see anything else since she is so scrunched, but she does appear to have a pretty shaped head (and it is in the right position)!

Everyone asks me how I'm feeling. There's two ways for me to answer that question: lying through my teeth or being brutally honest. Usually my response is a mix of the two. :) In all honesty, I don't feel as bad as I thought I would at 38 weeks pregnant. But, I am definitely feeling the effects of carrying a full-term baby. Every time I think about listing my complaints here, I have mixed emotions. I don't mind sharing with the world some of the things that have been difficult for me. But I also don't want to hear the comments about how so-and-so had it worse, so-and-so had it better, or that I better get used to it if I ever want to get pregnant again.

Which leads me to my newest preggo-problem: Other People's Opinions. My friend Ashley Martin welcomed me to Motherhood by reminding me that the flood of other people's unsolicited advice won't stop when the baby's born. It will just continue throughout her life and I will have to suck it up and deal with it. It's really a tragedy that we judge each other's parenting skills so harshly and that we think we know better than someone because we do things differently. But, I suppose that's part of the job description and I'll learn to just grin-and-bear-it!

Blake and I have a long list of to-do's for this weekend in hopes that we are actually prepared for bringing a baby home. The biggest to-do is to finally install her car seat!! This has been on the to-do list for WEEKS and it just keeps getting bumped down the priority list! Now it's at the top and hopefully it will get done today or tomorrow. We've only had it since the summer, so you'd think we would have gotten it done by now!

This will most likely be my last post pre-baby. I can't wait to post about meeting her for the first time!!