34 Weeks

Nothing too exciting has been happening lately. He's still moving around like crazy. I don't think Kaida moved around quite this much. Or she had more dainty movements. He feels like he's doing somersaults all the time.

Since my last appointment I've been having some groin and pelvic pain. I would say it's usually a dull ache, which I had around week 36 with Kaida, so this is definitely starting earlier. Sometimes, though, it's a really gnarly pain that makes it hard to walk. So I'm not sure if it's something he's doing or if it's my ligaments being a little too relaxed and not holding my pelvis where it belongs. Or a combination of both since it goes away pretty quick and just starts to ache again.

We met with Bethany the Doula and went over our birth vision. It's pretty much the same as with Kaida except I added intermittent monitoring to telemetric as an option since I'd rather not wear any belts, I added that I want a mirror and hot compresses when I'm pushing since the mirror really helped last time.
And I added "Please do not separate Colin and I (even across the room) unless medically necessary". Our Lamaze teacher told us that Kangaroo care is great for the baby and is actually a recent hospital policy but that old habits die hard so nurses often just take them to the warmer after the cord is cut. Having Kaida with me right after she was born was the best feeling so I'd like to repeat that, if possible, and have it last more then 15 seconds.
I figure that most of the birth vision is just how the midwives do things so it's really for the nurses to know how I'd like things to go without having to explain myself to everyone who comes in the room.

Bethany told me that she had registered for a convention but they changed the dates from sometime in February to January 18th and 19th. I told her I was fine with a backup but hopefully he doesn't come on his due date or the day before. Batsheva would be the backup and she seems very capable but I really like Bethany.

Colin's Stats:
According to the e-mail he's about 4 and 3/4 pounds and is almost 18 inches long. He's still working on adding fat and maturing his lungs. But if he were born right now he wouldn't likely have any long term problems.

As for me I'm up about 27 pounds from my starting weight. Doing better than last time but that's getting close to the recommended limit. My fingers have been puffing up a little bit, again, not as bad as last time but I was hoping to avoid it entirely. I'm still wearing my rings though so that's good.