35-36 Weeks

Although Lacy’s weight seems to have leveled off somewhat, Addie is still packing on the pounds at the rate of about an ounce a day, Addie now weighs almost 6 pounds and is more than 18 1/2 inches long and is running out of room to move around. Because she is running out of room she is less likely to work on her gymnastics simply because the gym is getting smaller. She is still staying flexible and it seems she has moved back to kickboxing because the kicks and punches are still very hard and frequent. Her kidneys are fully developed now, and her liver can process some waste products. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. She swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, which will form the contents of her first bowel movement, poor girl. I’m sure she will be happy to get that out of her system and I wonder who will be the lucky person to get to change that first poopy diaper? My vote is for Momma, or Mimi, or Nana, or Susu, or a nurse, or anyone not named Nick. Most of her basic physical development is now complete — she'll spend the next few weeks putting on some more weight.

Thanks to some hard work from Lacy, Susan, and Lemy this weekend, the nursery is 95% ready. The only thing left to do is to put the dresser together and fill it up with all shades of pink and purple. We picked up the dresser this weekend and it is still sitting in the garage staring me down. It wasn’t actually supposed to be here until March 3^rd, so maybe this is a sign that everything will happen a little sooner than expected… the same thing happened with the crib and changing table. I had every intention of putting together the dresser this weekend but we got caught up in cleaning out all the boxes and trash from everything else that had accumulated and also taking care of some other things this weekend. I’d say I will get to it one night this week and then we can put some pictures up. It’s a relief in itself just to be able to walk around in the nursery without tripping on a bag of gifts or toys. Lacy says it even smells like a nursery too.

Lacy is beginning to have Braxton hicks contractions more regularly, although they aren’t on any kind of schedule, aren’t overly frequent, and aren’t painful. You can definitely feel them when they are happening though. She is starting to get heartburn more often. She is snoring like freight train. Her ankles are swelling. Her hips ache. Her lower back aches. She really is pregnant, ha. I think she would agree that she has had a great pregnancy, but it is getting more and more difficult by the day. It’s starting to feel like Lacy has been pregnant for at least 2 years, these past few weeks have gone by so s  l  o  w. Who knows how much longer it will last??? The official due date is March 22, so sometime between now and the next 30 days (hopefully for Lacy’s sake) we will have a baby girl. I think she will come early but how early I have no idea.  We go to the doctor on Thursday and Lacy will be “checked”, so this might give us an early indication, or it might be too early to tell.