Well, I have to say that I did not expect to be posting a 40-week update….especially when I’m 40 weeks, 2 days!

Apparently, my body has forgotten what it’s supposed to do here.  I have been at the same point (4 cm, cervix VERY posterior) for 3 weeks now.  I had to see a nurse practitioner instead of my doctor yesterday and my cervix was so posterior, she couldn’t even measure it (and as a side note….OW!).

She said that the doctors don’t want patients going past 41 weeks at this practice.  I really wanted to avoid induction and I’m so lucky that I have a doctor who is supportive of me trying to do things as naturally as possible as long as there isn’t a medical reason not to.  But I’m OK with being induced at this point.  I am not progressing at all on my own, I’m already measuring 41 weeks (which means I’ll be measuring 42 by the time they induce) and I’m 100% certain about the dates…if I was wrong at all, it would have meant having him earlier, not later.  My biggest concern is his size…and I cannot risk a c-section in the land of no VBAC’s.

So I have an appointment with my doctor on Monday and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do.  If he doesn’t want me to go over 41 weeks, I’ll probably be induced on Tuesday.  If he’s OK with me going a few days over 41 weeks, I’ll be induced on Friday when he’s on call.  I’m still really hopeful that I’ll go into labor on my own, because I think the element of surprise is the only fun part of going into labor.  LOL  But I’ve pretty much accepted that I’ll be induced.

So that’s that.  I’ll end this post with a video I got of the baby moving around a couple of weeks ago.  Ignore the rash on my stomach…I’m not sure what that was, but it’s gotten way worse since then and I’m pretty sure it’s heat rash now.  It itches/hurts sooooooo much!

Even though I will be 39 weeks in just a few minutes (it’s almost midnight!), I didn’t post a 38-week update and I don’t have my 39-week appointment until Thursday, so I’m just going with “38-week update”.  And if that wasn’t a run-on sentence, then I don’t know what is.

Anyway, I finally had some progress and I was at almost 4 cm last week.  Hopefully I’m more than that now, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up.

My grandma got here on Monday afternoon, so everything is ready except the baby!  That’s what I thought until tonight, anyway.  I had pretty much everything crossed off my lists, but then I started thinking of new things, like updating our birth announcement mailing list, filling out the MOMS Club annual report, looking into getting a wilson cell booster to be able to reach Chad wherever he is when I go into labor, etc.  Then I started realizing that some things that were “done” last week aren’t so “done” anymore….things like posting invoices and making deposits and paying bills.

So at least I’m not sitting here twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the baby to get here.  But at the same time, I was kind of enjoying the feeling of knowing that nearly everything was done and we were ready for Baby to come!  Now I’m feeling slightly overwhelmed all over again!

I spent nearly the entire month of May freezer cooking to be prepared for Baby #3′s arrival.  He’s due at the end of June and I knew that even when I only had one and two kids, meal prep was the hardest thing for me to fit back into my routine.  So I wanted to be more prepared this time….I have a chest freezer and it’s filled to the gills!

It took an entire month mainly because I just doubled or tripled what we were already eating.  It’s too hard to find big chunks of time to cook when I have two busy preschoolers who need me.  Plus, we were trying to take advantage of the nice spring weather….even if we had swing sets richmond va , I wouldn’t want them outside playing by themselves.

So here’s what I made:

3 gallon bags of waffles
7 meals of cinnamon rolls
4 meals of baked oatmeal
1 gallon bag of pancakes
20 meals of muffins (zucchini, banana, pumpkin and blueberry)
3 gallon bags of pizza pockets
2 gallon bags of turkey and cheese pockets
2 gallon bags of brown bag burritos
4 meals of corn dog muffins
12 dozen chocolate chip cookies (unbaked)
3 lasagnas
3 baked sausage stews
3 chili’s
3 white chili’s
3 enchilada lasagna’s
5 Italian Shells meals
4 baked ziti’s
1 wild rice soup
3 cowboy pies
9 meals of cornbread
12 meals of garlic breadsticks
13 meals of dinner rolls

So basically, I have 28 casseroles (with a type of bread to accompany each meal), probably about 13 meals of pockets, burritos and corn dogs, and probably about 43 breakfasts.  Plus the 12 dozen cookies.  I think we’re set….now I just need this baby to get here so I can start eating all of this!

http://moneysavingmom.com/2012/05/4-weeks-to-fill-your-freezer-homemade-pizza-pockets-day-8.html

I don’t have a new belly picture to put with this post because….well, because I haven’t taken a new picture yet.  I’ll probably do that tonight.

I have been so uncomfortable the last week.  I feel like my pelvis is going to split into a million pieces, especially when I stand up.  I definitely was not this uncomfortable with the other two because I remember taking lots of long walks to try to get labor moving.  There’s no way I could do that this time!  Just walking a little bit to the dog park today was painful.

I had another doctor appointment on Friday and still no progress.  In addition, my cervix is still posterior, so I’m guessing Little Man isn’t planning on coming out anytime soon.  This is good news because it means my grandma will more than likely be able to be here to take care of Ava and Kelvin while I’m in the hospital, but I am hoping he’ll get things moving and come shortly after she gets here.  He’s a big baby, so the sooner he comes out, the better!

We weren’t sure if we were going to go to the Aire-Master conference in St. Louis this week because it all depended on the baby.  But we’ve decided not to go.  Even though it doesn’t look like he’s planning on coming out soon, Chad doesn’t want to be behind on his work when the baby comes because he’ll need to take some time off for that (obviously).

So that’s the latest.  I need to go make dinner now.  I’m thinking that when I go grocery shopping this week, I’m going to be focusing on “easy” meals (to avoid taking advantage of the Restaurant System too many times!).  I’m burned out from all my freezer cooking and it’s a toss-up as to whether I’ll feel good or crummy around dinner time.  Plus, this week I’m going to be doing fun things with the kids for the last time before we become a family of 5….now that the “work” to-do lists are pretty much knocked out (still have a few things, but nothing overwhelming), we’re working on our fun to-do list!  And I don’t want to be rushing home to make dinner!

I finally settled on a kindergarten curriculum for Ava to start in the fall.  I went back and forth and did tons of research and changed my mind a dozen times.  But I wanted to get the decision out of the way before the baby came because I wanted to be able to do all that second-guessing while my mind was still semi-clear (as clear as it gets anyway) and not lost on a fog of sleep deprivation.

In the end, I ended up going with My Father’s World.  I know that this will probably be the only year I use it because it seems like a more laid-back curriculum than I’ll be wanting once they get to grade-level curriculum.  But for kindergarten, I don’t mind it because I don’t think kindergarteners need a super-strict schedule with tons of worksheets.  They need to learn more by exploring and sensory learning.  So this curriculum seemed like exactly what I was looking for!

If I were a smoker, I think the event of me finally settling on a curriculum would be cause to break out some celebratory cigars !  It was such a relief to finally have the decision made and get the curriculum ordered so I could stop obsessing about the decision!

This year was our family’s 3rd time participating in the March for Babies.  Even though our lives haven’t been directly affected by premature birth, we still think it’s a great cause to raise donations for and a fun way to spend time together as a family.  It takes place on a Friday night, and it’s way more fun to participate in this than tackle a “weekend” project like laying basement floor tiles .

Unfortunately, it was really hot this year!!  The kids were not enjoying the walk.  Because of the heat and all the contractions I was having (I think the walking was triggering them), we only did the short (1 mile) walk instead of the 2.5 mile walk.  It was more than enough for us!

After we walked, we had the dinner they provided and let the kids play all the activities and games.  Somehow they got their second wind then and it wasn’t “too hot” anymore!  Funny how that works, isn’t it?! 

The biggest hit was the bounce house.  It stayed open until 8 and most of the people had left by then, so the kids had it all to themselves after awhile!

They also loved the face-painting and the cupcakes (as evidenced on Kelvin’s face!).

And finally, they had several games where the kids won prizes.  These glasses/noses/mustaches were one of their favorites.

Today is the first day of my due date month!  I’m not due till the end of June, but still….I can now say that I’m due THIS month!

I thought I would be all excited today because of that, but I’m kind of grumpy.  I had my 36-week doctor appointment today and I haven’t made nearly as much progress as I had hoped.  Last week, I was 2 cm and this week, I’m “a definite 2, close to a 3″.  I was a definite 2 last week!!

If this were my first baby, I’d probably be completely fine with that news.  After all, I still have 3.5 weeks to go until my due date.  But knowing how my body handles the last few weeks of pregnancy, it was really discouraging to hear that.  With both of the other two kids I was 3-4 cm at this same point.  And with Kelvin, I continued dilating up to 5.5 before I finally had him at 40 weeks.  So knowing that and knowing that I barely progressed and am still at a 2 right now, I’m convinced this baby is going to be late.

It was even more discouraging to hear this news after my doctor told me that this baby seemed bigger than the other two had and that I’m still measuring a week ahead.  So not only will he probably be late, he’ll be probably be really big.  Ouch!

Aside from the discouraging doctor appointment today, the pregnancy is still going really well.  I’m uncomfortable, which is to be expected.  But I have a lot of energy, which is helping me cross lots of things off my to-do list.  I’m kind of looking forward to having everything crossed off and just being able to focus on knitting or “fun” projects until the baby comes, but I’m also worried about how crazy I’ll go then!  Maybe I’ll have to start planning who to send online holiday cards to, just to get ahead and keep myself busy!

I know I need to just chill out and enjoy these last few weeks because I’m always one to miss being pregnant once I’m not anymore.  Besides, this is also my last few weeks of just having two kids, so I need to make the most of it!