In the home stretch...

This is day number 271 and you're 38 weeks pregnant!
You have 9 days or 1 weeks left, and are 96.8% of the way there.
Baby's age since conception is 257 days or 36 weeks.

Things start to settle in for me at work (finally managing to complete some big projects that have been weighing on me heavily) and while all has not yet been resolved, I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

With this progress at work, I think I've been finally starting to relax my head and my body. This started to show at the OB's office yesterday, as I'm finally a fingertip dilated, starting to soften and efface (nothing major... 20-30%) and he was able to feel the baby's head. I've been feeling like the baby has been inching ever lower (although not nearly as low at this point as Maia was, but I understand that's to be expected... I may not fully drop until the day labor begins).

So for the most part, the office visit was good yesterday, although my BP was high, for me. So the nurse let me sit for a while to see if it would come down, which it did. I don't know if part of the issue was that I had just eaten lunch, or left work a little later than I'd hoped to get there on time. The second reading was still a little higher than I would have liked (130/80-something). My swelling is pretty minor, and fairly controllable (yay). I'm still totally able to wear my normal shoes, and my wedding ring still turns easily.

I have, unfortunately, gained MORE at this point than I did during the last pregnancy, which means way more than I would have hoped for either of them! However, nursing helped me shed quite a few pounds before, so I'm hopeful that process will go similiarly (or better) this time around.

Heartbeat sounded good, measuring appropriately (he didn't give us numbers for either again this time... nor did we ask, we were talking about other things).

SO. Uncomfortable? Yes. Impatient, not yet... but starting to get my head ready. It strikes me that when it's finally time to go, it'll all fly. I'm just trying to think of how and when labor will start, so I can figure out how to handle the care for Maia. It all depends!

Ray seems to think I'm bigger this time around... I feel very much like I'm carrying ALL out front. However, when I look at pics of the end of my pregnancy with Maia, she was pretty far out front, too. Guess I need another pic to really compare again.