The Bump Chronicles- week 36

36 weeks. According to most people baby is now considered a fully baked bun if it decides to pop out of the oven so even though I technically have almost 4 weeks left we have entered the “any day now” stage.

First time moms are notorious for going overdue but the general consensus with the exception of 1 person is that I won’t make it to my due date.

I’m not one for competitions but I’m curious to see what the online consensus is, if you have an opinion, post a comment with the day you think Baby Fox will debut to this world along with your gender prediction.  If you feel really psychic you can also add other information such as time of birth, weight and length.  I’m curious to see if the online opinion varies a lot from the people that have already expressed their “knowing”.

I don’t care when baby decides to show up as long as it waits until next Thursday (the 37 week mark at which point it is legal to have a homebirth in Florida).  That is a big difference to most moms in the online message boards that I visit which are bragging about their baby “having an eviction date”.

Last Monday we had the home visit with the midwife, this means that she knows how to get to our house and won’t be accidentally knock on the neighbor’s door at 2am.  She loved my meditation bench, something I’ve had for years that allows me to meditate in the lotus position for hours while keeping good posture and preventing my butt from falling asleep.  It looks like a mini kneel cushion as seen in Catholic churches, apparently midwives can sometimes spend hours on their knees during a birth so it’s good to know that she won’t have to worry about sore knees at mine.

“If you really want a humanized birth, the best thing you can do is stay the hell out of the hospital.” – Marsden Wagner former director or the World Health Organization (Women and children’s health) and author of Born in the USA

We are thinking about printing a sign to put on the door for when I’m in labor just in case I am in the backyard and decide to get loud and somebody calls the cops thinking that somebody is dying, it would be nice if I could find a template online though, lol.

Mentally and physically I’m as ready as I’ll be, not saying I feel 100% ready but it’ll have to do (and I’m sure it WILL do).

On the house front we are not fully ready but we’re way closer.  Last week we had a baby shower hosted by MIL and SIL co-conspired with hubby, I didn’t know any details until a few days prior and it was better that way.  We got a lot of very needed items, baby is all set for clothes, bath items and we even got a nursery furniture set!  Out of town family and friends that couldn’t attend sent gifts from afar.

I feel very grateful and blessed for the generosity of family and friends, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to buy all of this on our own.

Now I feel like I’m on a time crunch to get the thank you notes done and sent before baby arrives, yet another deadline!

Now I’m in the stage of buying the last minute must haves, found a good deal on the sling I wanted online, got a changing pad for 1 of the 2 changing tables that we now have and other minor items.  Still pending… a diaper pail.

I can’t stand Diaper Genie, most diaper pails are designed for disposable diapers, I was looking into just a kitchen trash can with a step but haven’t found the right one so I’ll probably end up ordering online.

Still looking for a carrier that Daddy will like, it looks like it will be an Ergo which is on the pricey range, specially if he will use it before 4 months because we would need to buy  the infant insert.  I’d rather spend the money in the Ergo than go cheap on an Infantino or Baby Bjorn for him, heck I would use an Ergo once baby is older.

I have finished sorting through baby’s clothing just to separate the newborn and 0-3 sizes to wash those first, baby has a lot of clothes!  More than mommy, lol!

Thanks to grandma Fox the clothes have been washed and the cloth diapers are being prepped which is great for my peace of mind and also a huge savings of $ and time at $2.90 per load (wash only) if we had gone to the laundromat.

While my nesting urge involved laundry and shopping, Daddy Fox’s nesting urge involved clearing and setting up the nursery.  One day he just HAD to clear the room of anything not baby related, that same night!  So here we are in the middle of the night relocating computers, desks, etc.  not a bad thing except it happened on the same day that I was trying to get the house cleaned and organized but relocating things meant we first had to create chaos, rearrange furniture and then… we could clean, so that was annoying for me but we got past it.

Daddy Fox’s second wave of nesting entailed getting the new furniture assembled, he pulled an all nighter going to bed at close to 5am and although not completely done he made a decent amount of progress.  It’s funny how our nesting urges seem to take turns, now that he’s slow down on the nursery setup I’m starting to get itchy about getting it finished, lol.

So formula companies seem to realize that they’re dealing with a hippie and now they have started to market ORGANIC formula to me, they just don’t give up!

On other marketing news, Amazon.com seems to know that I want a camcorder to video tape everything baby because they have been sending me sales and discounts on camcorders for weeks, unfortunately I can’t splurge on such a luxury when we still have baby stuff to buy so I probably won’t be able to get one until well after maternity leave is over.

Yesterday I had my 36 week appointment with my Primary Care Physician/ Breastfeeding Specialist/ Baby’s Doctor.  As usual it was great, we (meaning I) took almost an hour of her time with a long list of questions on breastfeeding, cloth diapering, vitamin K for newborns, etc.  I’ve never before had a doctor not rush through things and take the time to give honest answers in plain English.

When she asked me how I was doing and I said “good, aside from the swelling”, she immediately offered to write me a note for work to allow me to wear non-restrictive shoes for the rest of the pregnancy.  This is welcome as right now flip flops is the only thing that doesn’t torture my swelling feet.

I did find some slippers at Wally World that feel very comfortable and although they’re not designed for work, they do look like ballerina flats from afar so I hope that upper management won’t mind, I’m sure that they’ll rather have their supervisor wearing that than flip flops.