Week 36

Phew, what a week it has been!  I thought I would have all the time in the world once I stopped working but I have been staying busy getting things for the shower (I'll do a separate shower post, too much to talk about!) and then picking up lots of baby items that we felt like we should have in case she comes early.  We got the crib up this week and it looks great!  The bedroom is actually quite cozy with her furniture and doesn't feel as crowded as we thought it would.

So we had our ultrasound last Friday and the baby looks great, and big!  : )  The ultrasound was much different than the earlier ones because she is so large now that you can see very little of her in one shot (like just her mouth and nose) rather than the whole body like before.  They measured the diameter of her head and abdomen and the length of her leg and arm bones, then put those measurements into the computer which spits out an approximate weight... 6 lb 5 oz!  I included a couple of the ultrasound pictures below.  The first shows her head/face from the side and the second is just her nose and mouth (sideways).  We can' wait to meet her! 

We saw the doctor yesterday who informed us that this is still an estimate of her weight and that this she is in the 70% percentile for size, so she is definitely large, but not TOO large. It was also interesting that the doctor measured me at 36 cm this week, while the doctor at 34 weeks measured me at 37 cm... I guess it's not very exact since they are just holding a tape measure up to your belly and where they start and stop is up to them! ( I have been seeing different doctors to this point since you don't know who will deliver you out of the doctor group, but I will see the same doctor every week now.) The doctor also basically said there is no way to know whether you will be able to deliver the baby vaginally until delivery comes since there are so many factors... how much the baby's head molds, your pelvis, how strong your contractions are, etc. So I am just hoping to not go though labor to only have a c-section at the end, but I guess we will see what happens! The doctor also said the baby is not really engaged yet, she has started to drop and she could feel her head, but when she pushed on it it still appears to be floating rather than completely engaged in the pelvis.

Week 36 Update (babycenter.com):
Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. 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. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.


At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position. But if she isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating her from the outside of your belly.