01 02 03 Down In My Heart Joy!: Thirty Six Weeks 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

Thirty Six Weeks

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Dear Beta,

I breathed a sigh of relief when we crossed the thirty-six week boundary line.  If you were to be born this week, you would still be considered premature, as “full term” status does not arrive until next week.  But at thirty six weeks, barring a literal-fraction-of-a-percent-chance-of-something-really-crazy, you will be born at home. 

Sometime in the next six weeks, we will welcome you home.  Into the home in which you were conceived, the home in which you will take your first breath, the home in which you will spend your first years of life.

Nearly everything is ready for you.  I spent the weekend with a giant to-do list, trying to get as many errands and tasks crossed off as possible.  I keep trying to remind myself that babies really don’t need very much, and that which you really need (love, diapers, and breast milk), are already here waiting for you.  I guess it is US, the adults, who seem to need more than that!

Your Grandmama completed all of the sewing projects for the room!  Everything is so adorable and homey feeling.  I already love sitting in your room, looking around and enjoying the warm colors and peaceful feeling.



This coming week, our friend Cindy will finish painting your dressers.  Then I will load them up with the diapers, clothes, and other items that have been patiently waiting in a pile of boxes in our living room.

A few more photos and pieces of art are in progress for your walls, that will be assembled and hung over the next couple of weeks.

This weekend, your Daddy installed the car seat and bases in our cars.  It wasn’t until this morning when I opened my car door to go to work that it hit me.  There it was, a car seat strapped in the back seat of my car.  Since you won’t need it to come home from the hospital, it may be a few weeks after you arrive that you use it for the first time.  But it is there, ready and waiting for you.  I don’t know why, when we have been working on your room all this time, that it was seeing the car seat in my car that made me realize how quickly you will be here.  I could almost picture your tiny frame nuzzled inside the seat.


We also made a trip to the cloth diaper boutique in town, and balanced out all the wonderful diapers from our baby shower, with some other items we were still missing.  I’m (almost) looking forward to changing diapers.  I’m sure after the first couple days, I’ll regret saying that, but for now, I’m kind of excited about trying out on you all the new diapers we have collected.  Your Daddy and I practiced on a doll (Baby Hope), but she doesn’t squirm or fuss when she’s getting changed, so it’s not exactly the same!


I’ve decided you must like to listen.  Sometimes you are moving around like crazy, but if I start singing, you become still.  Then when I stop, you move all over again.  It’s like you pause, quieting yourself to listen.  You do the same thing sometimes when your Daddy plays with you at night.  You will be moving all around, so I will call your Daddy over from brushing his teeth, to quickly come feel you.  Then he starts talking to you, and you stop moving.  Then ten minutes later, when he’s given up and told you “goodnight”, you start moving again like crazy.  I’ve also interpreted as your excitement after hearing us, your message that you want us to continue singing and talking to you.

Your movements feel like stretches, rolls, and pushes, with little limbs sliding under the surface.  Gone are the kicks and punches, since there’s no space for that any more!

My sister Mercy asked me this week what I was looking forward to most when you arrive.  Three things came to mind.  I’m looking forward to learning how to cloth diaper you, and using our awesome diapers and the adorable handmade wipes from your Nana Rose (and again, I will likely regret saying that after a few days when the excitement wears off, and there are loads of diapers to change and wash).

I’m also looking forward to no longer being pregnant.  While I’ve had a normal, easy pregnancy for the most part, the last couple weeks have started to tax my body.  My feet and ankles have swollen, sometimes painfully so.  You are big enough that when you move your head, some of my nerves get pinched temporarily, sending sharp sudden pains into my groin or legs, sometimes enough where I almost fall because the strength in one of my legs is suddenly gone.  It is gone in a second, when you move again.  Moving my body around, whether walking, getting in and out of bed, or just doing normal activities, is increasingly cumbersome and tiring.  And oddly enough, while I’ve had so many beautiful compliments and nice things said to me by friends, family, and strangers, I’ve also gotten a bit fed up with unkind, thoughtless things that people think are okay to say to a pregnant woman.  So, these are my complaints.  The list is short, thankfully, and having discomforts does not detract from my joy at carrying you and expecting you.  I have been uncomfortable AND joyful at the same time!


And finally, I am really looking forward to watching my husband become a father.  He has SO much excitement already.  When he sees a little baby somewhere, he has been asking how old it is, and he is convinced each one is the cutest thing he’s ever seen.  He of course still talks to you each night, and I can see both his excitement increasing, and his exasperation that you are SO close but not yet tangible.  I can’t wait to see him hold you.  To watch him play with you, tickle your feet, kiss your forehead, play silly iPhone music apps for you like he’s been doing lately.

We start seeing our midwife Robin every week now.  This past week was a fun appointment, because your Aunt Esther and cousins Isabel and Aidan came to the appointment.  Robin and I wanted to be completely confident that the placenta was located in a safe position for vaginal delivery (ie. not covering the cervix).  So just this once, she used the Doppler to listen to your heartbeat, your umbilical cord, and your placenta.  There’s a good chance you’ve been hanging out in the lower part of your house this whole time since your placenta is located at the top and back of your house – a perfect position.  During the entire time the Doppler was being used, you were rolling and pushing all around.  You had all of us laughing at your crazy movements.  Your Daddy even captured it on video!

Your house measured thirty eight centimeters, and you were still in a good birthing position – head down, back to my left side.  Since your house has been consistently measuring about a  week ahead of your due date, I keep wondering if that means you will arrive a tiny bit earlier than we are expecting you.

You are now about nineteen inches long, and weigh about five and two thirds pounds.  You continue accumulating fat stores, so that at birth, approximately fifteen percent of your body weight will be fat.

The only organ in your body still maturing is your lungs.  They will continue to mature and develop until you emerge, so the longer you stay inside, the easier time you will have breathing when you arrive.  The only system in your body not yet functional is your digestive system.  It is ready, but not operational yet, since your body is waiting for your placenta to cease its job as your avenue of nutrition.

Your conception and imminent arrival are hope fulfilled.  You have been dreamed of, longed for, and painfully awaited.  But we had a promise from the Lord that one day, you would exist.  And in the painful waiting times, we clung to that hope, desperate for it to sustain us.

Because we have a loving Father, who never lies, and is always faithful, we can hope.  And now, here we are, ready to welcome into our arms the tangible promise for which we hoped.

I pray that as you grow, you hope.  That your hope is created in the truth of God’s word (because we can hope all we want for a new gadget, but that’s not a hope truth from Scripture!).  That your hope, faint and wavering though it might be at times, is enough to help you hang onto the promise even in the darkness.

We do not hope in Santa or the tooth fairy.  We do not hope in our job to be our financial source, or the government to be our safety source.  We do not hope in our friends to be around forever, or our family to be perfect and unfailing.  We hope in Christ.  All other hopes can disappoint us, but if we trust Him, and keep trusting Him when all seems lost, then trust Him even more when we are buried in despair, we will find that hope in Him never fails.  Because He never fails.

You are an answer to prayer, and answer to promise, and answer to our hope.  May you walk in the beauty of that hope your entire life.

“Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my HOPE is in you all day long.”  (Psalm 25:5)

“Be strong and take heart, all you who HOPE in the Lord.”  (Psalm 31:24)

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your HOPE in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”  (Psalm 42:5)

“For what You have done I will always praise you in the presence of your faithful people. And I will HOPE in Your name, for Your name is good.”  (Psalm 52:9)

“Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my HOPE comes from Him.”  (Psalm 62:5)


Thirty Five Weeks Pregnant

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