40 weeks!

bump watch: sweetpea is officially head down, thank goodness! annnd apparently not quite ready to debut in the outside world yet. i'm trying to relax and just enjoy these last days of pregnancy, but we're getting pretty impatient to meet this little one! 

sweet pea: is more active than ever the last few days, with lots of kicks and squirms. at my 39 week appointment, baby landed a sucker punch right against the doppler wand that made the midwife jump (and made me laugh!). 

image credit from What to Expect When You're Expecting

best moment: finding out for sure that sweetpea is vertex (aka head down), as that's a prerequisite for delivering at the midwife center as opposed to a hospital birth. it's been quite the mental challenge trying to make informed decisions about our birth preferences, while still holding everything loosely knowing that the birthing process is unpredictable, and in the end, our goal is to have a baby, however that happens! i just read an interesting article about the danger of focusing on "successful" births, with the implication that there is such a thing as a "failed" birth for women who don't try hard enough or aren't well prepared. i certainly don't discount that birth can be traumatic, disappointing and frightening, but we don't need to pile guilt onto that, just as an easy and comfortable childbirth (the Hypnobabies goal!) is a blessing and not something that we can completely control. the semantics are tricky, since the more informed and prepared you are, the better the birth experience should be, but the fact remains that it is a powerful phenomenon and at a certain point, we have to relinquish control and let go.

symptoms: we had a little contraction action on Saturday night that got everybody's hopes up, and then petered out after several hours. every little bit helps, though!  

cravings: orange juice for sure. can't get enough of the Simply Orange juice with mango! 

what i miss: getting dressed without feeling like an eighty-five-year-old. (this encompasses both the compression stockings, which are now an essential part of my daily wardrobe, and the gyrations and grunting required to put them on.)

looking forward to: baby time! if Sweetpea is still cooking next Monday, we'll do a non-stress test to measure baby's heart rate in relation to movement and make sure that the placenta is still functioning adequately. til then, we take one day at a time!