Week 32

I seems like only yesterday day that Bryan and I were gawking at those two blue lines, silently asking each other and ourselves, "So now what?" But the fact is that that excited, happy day is now roughly seven months behind us, and, today, entering our 32nd week of pregnancy, we are a mere two months shy of our due date.  Two months!

So now what?

As the birth gets closer, that question has become a little more urgent. Where once "now what" meant little more than waiting and, later on, watching (but doing mostly nothing) today it means that we had really better get our gear in order. All the literature is warning me to watch out for signs of preterm labor. In our last Bradley Method class, we discussed what items to pack for the hospital and were tasked with finalizing our birth plan in writing as homework.  Our doula recently urged me to walk at least an hour every day from here on out (it's an exercise purported to help ensure a punctual delivery).  And we realize, though it's sometimes still a little shocking to think of it, that if I go into labor in as little as six weeks, I'll be considered full term and no one will try to stop the baby from making its "early" debut.

As you can probably tell, we've been focusing a lot of our attention lately on preparing for labor and delivery--a good thing since those two steps are pretty crucial to the somewhat longer term goal of bringing this baby home. But we also haven't forgotten that Baby will need postpartum care--and that we ought to prepare a bit for that, too, as Baby doesn't come with a tutorial or trial run.  That's why today, for instance, we attended a breastfeeding class (at Shining Light Prenatal Education in Lawrenceville--an excellent resource for local moms-to-be, by the way).

Having spoken with a lot of moms over the years--and particularly over the past few months, of course--I've developed the impression that breastfeeding is a learned skill that doesn't come to most (or maybe even any) mothers as naturally as evolutionary theory would tempt us to expect.  And these days, in particular, because we don't all grow up with frequent exposure to breastfeeding, we're more often than not forced to learn the tricks of the trade the hard way--that is, on the job.  So Bryan and I decided to attend a class to help us (well, me, mostly--but he'll play an important role as my primary support) to start out strong.

I'm so glad we attended.  Although it's obviously too early to say yet whether the class will play a pivotal role in easing Baby's and my transition to nursing, I did come out of the class with a much better sense of what to expect:  how the baby achieves its first latch (have you ever heard of the breast crawl?), how to best position the baby to avoid the pain and irritation sometimes associated with breastfeeding, what complications might arise and how to address them if they do, how to tell when Baby's hungry (before the crying begins, that is), when to best introduce the bottle, and so on.  We were fortunate to have signed up for an unusually small class--it was just Bryan and me and the instructor--so we had plenty of time to go over all of our questions and to amass a ton of information on matters we hadn't even considered.

Yes, we're getting closer, and thanks to a wonderful community of mothers and educators around us, we're feeling more and more prepared for what's to come.

What we have now, by the way, according to the books, is an approximately 4-pound, 19-inch squirmer, quickly running out of space for its squirmy antics.  I have to tell you:  I'm shocked sometimes to feel a little baby rump way over on my left side and then to feel little baby feet kicking way over on the right.  It makes me think our baby must have the longest legs in all the (baby) world.  And then I realize that our baby's almost done growing in the vertical direction.  At this point, it's very nearly at its birth height, and most of its continued growth is in the form of fat accumulation (growing out, not up). I'm not sure why I find that distinction so remarkable, but I do.  That's one long little peanut I have inside me already.  Though I also wouldn't be surprised if Archie did indeed inherit Daddy's lengthy gams, too!