Week 34

I'm actually 33 weeks in this photo... I wasn't intending to pose, just staring down in awe and my husband said "I've got to get a picture of that!" and tada! The belly photo we've all been waiting for.

So I found this page that takes your due date and then shows a table of the odds of going into labor each week and day! The fact that I went searching for this tells you something I suppose... Curious? Check. Eager? Check. Hoping I'm not going to be way overdue? Check.

How I'm feeling physically:

• Slowing down. Not capable of as much as before. Evenings are for resting and chilling out.
• Swelling in my hands, feet and ankles have appeared and I'm a little nervous. Is it too early for this? I've stopped wearing the wedding ring and I bought a new pair of flip flops, in case that's all I'm going to be wearing in the last month.
• Continued nightly back and hip pain. And apparently I'm snoring like a lumberjack now. Have you ever been sleeping and heard yourself snoring? A loud rhythmic snore? And you didn't wake up - you were asleep and yet conscious of yourself snoring? Yeah. That's never happened to me before. Until now. So embarrassing. 

How I'm feeling emotionally:

• There are still puh-lenty of things to be done to get ready, and yet in some ways, there's not a lot to be done except wait. Sometimes I feel like I'm obsessing on small details, researching things and reading Babble or Baby Center, etc. I'm feeling impatient and eager. But sometimes I need to take a step back and just read a book, watch a movie, bake something - take a break.
• I am so envious of those women who say they've never felt more attractive and womanly than during pregnancy. I suspect many of them were skinny little twinkles to begin with. As for me and my broad german-hipped self, I'm feeling unattractive and generally smooshy these days. Longing to feel pretty and unencumbered by water weight. Oh Gosh. I hope some of this is water weight. Eek.

Highlights:

• A baby shower this past weekend! So special. Yellow and blue and green. Adorable rubber duckies floating in the sea of blue punch I couldn't drink enough of. I was so grateful special family members were able to be there. A wee bit overwhelmed by everyone's generosity and the new baby things that are filling the nursery.
• Over the last few weeks I finally got the nerve to take the tags off items and wash them and put things in dresser drawers. Wow. This is weird. Wow. There's going to be a real life baby in this room soon.
• Taking the hospital tour. I felt teary and this surprised me. Not sad, just so emotional, so overwhelmed. So weird. I think I'm ready for birth, and then I think omigosh, I'm not ready!
• I put together the crib! Here's how it went down. First, picture me assembling a crib alone on Sunday night while watching Downton Abbey in my living room. Only a crib could seduce my attention away from Mary and Matthew's plaintive glances. I made one mistake on the crib and had to backtrack, but then I had it all together again. 
• But THEN I had to scrape the horrid "warning" stickers off the crib. Which took forever. Ikea should be sued for those bloody legal stickers. 
• Now, picture a pleased as punch pregnant woman pushing her crib down the hall towards the nursery. Now, picture the look on my face when I realize it is too wide, in any possible conflagration to fit through the doorway. Crap. I push it back down the hall, too tired to fix it until the next night, whilst watching The Bachelor, I disassemble it, put it into the nursery, and reassemble it again. 
• Later, my husband (smugly) asks me if I have learned my lesson - that it is better to go slow and do it properly the first time. I'd like to say I have, but in the end it's all about persistence and getting it done any which way! What I should have said was "Yes, I learned my lesson. I should have made you assemble the crib." But I was too impatient to wait.