His Plan, Not Ours: Our little blessing at 34 weeks

How far along? 34 weeks

Baby’s size? The baby weighs about the same as a cantaloupe, about 4.75 pounds and almost 18 inches long. His fat layers — which will help regulate his body temperature once he’s born — are filling him out, making him rounder. His skin is also smoother than ever. His central nervous system is maturing and his lungs are continuing to mature as well.

Sleep? I’m having a harder time falling asleep at night because it’s getting more difficult to find a comfortable position. But once I finally do fall asleep, I sleep pretty soundly (minus the frequent bathroom breaks). And boy, are they frequent. Tim says we should take out stock in toilet paper.

Food cravings? Not a whole lot of cravings. Green grapes and this new sherbet we found that is orange with chocolate chips in it. Soooo good.

Food aversions? Broccoli and I are still not the best of friends, but I still eat it anyway.

Symptoms? The upper half of my belly button seems to want to poke out, but the bottom half is holding it back. My back hurts pretty frequently, but I don’t really have a whole lot of the common symptoms particularly the digestion-related ones, thank goodness. I’ve had what I think are a few Braxton-Hicks contractions (practice contractions), but I’m not certain.

Best moment this week? Attempting to videotape my belly moving has been pretty fun this week. We’re still working on it and may post something on the blog. The baby seems to be a little camera-shy because he will be holding his own personal dance party in my belly and it will be moving all over the place, but once we bring out the camera, he stops moving.

Movement? The baby has been moving a ton. We’ll keep trying to document it. It’s really remarkable to watch my whole belly ripple as he rolls over. This morning I rolled over to try to get Tim to wake up and my tummy was pressed against his back and the baby kicked so hard that Tim felt it in the small of his back. That was pretty funny.

What I miss about not being pregnant? Not too much, though I think it’s pretty funny that I have this vision in my head of how big my body is and a lot of times I try to fit through spaces that I don’t fit through anymore or I bump into Tim or counters or other things because I forget that I have a belly. My hands have swelled a little bit in the last few weeks so my rings have gotten tighter. I actually took off my wedding ring, which fits a bit tighter, and have just been wearing my engagement ring.

What I’m looking forward to? I’m really looking forward to finishing the baby’s nursery. I’m also interested in what we’ll continue learning at our childbirth classes. Our first one went well. I didn’t really learn too much that I hadn’t already read in my pregnancy books, but I think it helped Tim to hear some of it. It was kind-of nice though to hear about the process from someone who made it not sound like a terribly scary thing. Our instructor is really big about trying to take the fear and uncertainty out of labor.