37 Weeks Pregnant

I have officially made it "full term" in this pregnancy! Of course, I think the last few weeks are still important for the baby to develop, but it's nice to hit another milestone and be out of preemie-land. This week also marks the end of my exercising. In preparing myself for a 5K, I walked 2.5 miles and had contractions ALL DAY. It was not fun and I really want to keep her in there until my mom can come to watch Ashton, otherwise I am afraid Bill will have to miss the birth because I really don't want to put anyone at an inconvenience of taking my toddler in their home for who knows how many hours, and I'm sure a baby-sitter would get expensive and it would just stress me out. So basically, I am bound and determined to keep her in there at least until November 2. Crossing my legs until then. :) Everything else is going well. I like my doctor, but he is leaving the practice in a couple months and is pre-occupied with that, and his nurse is a bit incompetent at times, which means I have to really be on my toes...some examples: For some reason, they don't seem to have it on record that they gave me the RHogam shot around 27 weeks, and keep asking me if I have had it...they did give it to me. And I am pretty sure the nurse doesn't know how to take blood pressure. She doesn't really pay attention to the angle of the arm and last time she had it all scrunched up and told me she was getting a really high reading! Of course, that worried me since I had pre-eclampsia with Ashton, and that is one of the signs. She had a different nurse come in to check and she got a normal reading. Um...okay. But I also think she doesn't know how to use the scale. According to her, I gained 14 lbs in the last week! Another indicator of pre-eclampsia. Well, according to my scale at home, I have gained just under 1lb. Since I have had no swelling and no visible weight gain and don't have any of the symptoms, I have concluded that they are completely wrong. When I got in to see the doctor, he told me everything looked great. I guess they had written down the normal blood pressure, but why didn't he mention the weight gain? Maybe because I don't look like I gained any weight. Either way, I asked him and he said that had happened to another patient and they think the scale may be broken. I mentioned my concern with pre-eclampsia, and he acted like he had no idea I had had it before, and then looked much more closely at my chart. He said there is no protein present for pre-eclampsia, I look fine, and my blood pressure is fine so everything is okay. He also said that the swelling will start 1-2 weeks before the pre-eclampsia develops, so to keep an eye out for that. I feel like I need to chase the information, but if I'm persistent then it seems fine...as I was about to leave, I asked if there was any way he could tell me if the baby was head-down, so I would know what to expect. He said that he would see if the ultrasound room was available (it was!) and they would get me in there right away. So the best thing is that I got to see the baby, confirmed for the third time that she is a girl, she is head-down and pretty low too (but hasn't yet "dropped"), she has hair, and she looks very crammed in there! I forgot to ask if they could estimate her weight. Oh well...anyway, I couldn't get any decent pictures, but I'm including one that has the profile of her head and her little fist jammed into her mouth.
Plans for this week include finally packing the hospital bags and getting all her clothes organized. At least I registered at the hospital, so we are good to go.

Baby size: Watermelon
My weight: Up 42 lbs since pre-pregnancy