Friday Appointment, 37 Weeks, and I Got My Pound Back.

So I saw Dr. Grillo on Friday for my 36-week checkup and almost all is well... I did regain the pound I'd lost last week, but he reminded me that the baby is growing very quickly now and he is not unhappy with my rate of gain at all.  This was nice to hear because both he and Dr. Haberstroh are reputed to be tough on weight gain.  So now I feel all smug and stuff.

Just to keep me from feeling too good about myself, he had to share with me the fact that I am Strep B positive.  This means that I am a carrier for the bacteria, and while there are no guarantees that I'll pass the bacteria on to Ivan Jr, there are no guarantees that I won't, either... so we are due for a round of antibiotics when I go into labor.  If I don't get the full course in time (4 hours - I had Savannah less than an hour after I was admitted), we are both due for a 48-hour hospital stay, which will be my longest ever. About this I am not thrilled.  I'm not going to mope about it but so far, there are a few other things about my upcoming delivery experience with which I am also not thrilled... the required IV, the required hospital gown and nothing else and worn open down the BACK (which is a real pain when you want to nurse immediately after delivery), and now this.

I will practice serenity.

There are other new and exciting things in our life - like my tendency to suddenly spasm as if I'd been taser'd any time the baby decides to roll a certain way onto a nerve in my groin.  Yep, completely normal... apparently he doesn't have a whole lot of room to do his thing, and since his head is down low, he's got complete control of my legs from time to time just by pressing his head right there.  Dr.  Grillo says, "Heat."  Ivan says, "You're baking the baby!" 

I grit my teeth.

I also am getting no more than two hours' sleep at a time again, which I guess is good preparation for the upcoming event - but it would have been nice to stockpile, to my way of thinking.

And I now have Fred Flintstone feet of an evening.  The other night my right ankle was so swollen it looked sprained.  Kind of alarming. 

Otherwise, I feel good.

We have the cradle in the master bedroom, and the changing pad set up on my dresser, and the diaper caddy loaded and waiting.  We have enough clothes to get us through seeing how big baby Ivan is really going to be, and enough diapers to do the same.  I found the cutest cloth wipes:

And Ivan is busily at work with paint in the nursery.

We have three weeks or so until we're parents.  I keep asking myself where the time went.  I was going to keep a baby journal.  I was going to take belly pictures.  I never really got enthused about either of those.  I was going to write a Dad's Handbook on Pregnancy.  Then I realized there's just too much variety in pregnancy to cover all the bases adequately without having to call it an encyclopedia.

I was going to make my own [insert anything requiring a sewing machine here], but between naps and moving furniture around, my poor machine is still sitting idle.  I think I'm going to take us both to an obedience class after things get settled and I can talk big sisters into babysitting for an hour or so.  I did finish the afghan (documented elsewhere) so I can feel good about that.

Now... we wait.

I hate wait.