34 Weeks

How Far Along? 34 weeks

How I'm Feeling Overall: Still doing good. Up until a few hours ago, I would have said that it is getting increasingly difficult to breath because of baby being up so high, but literally in the last few hours, I feel maybe a little reprieve in that area and increasing pressure downward. And both Ryan and my mom confirmed that my belly looks lower. So hooray for progress!


How your baby's growing: Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.


Movement? It's very funny... baby has been head down for weeks now and the rear end stays pretty much in the same place too. Baby just rotates from left to right in my tummy and that determines which side I get to be kicked on for that period of time. Every once in a while, I feel little feathery movements down low from baby's hands, but usually, I just get good swift kicks in the side.

Food Cravings/Aversions? My sweet tooth is back. That is all.  :)

Symptoms: Aside from still needing to get up to go to the bathroom every hour, I have something new for you to listen to me complain about!! (Yay you!) I have been having a lot of round ligament pain. I jokingly told my midwives tonight that it must be because I'm getting old and my body is getting worn out from so many pregnancies. Yeah, turns out it's not a joke. I am getting old. I have been pregnant a lot in the last 7 years. These two factors combine to make my round ligaments a wee bit exhausted. Go figure!

Maternity Clothes? It's funny, this pregnancy, I've only hauled out ONE of my maternity shirts. I've been just wearing my old clothes for the most part... and everybody is commenting about how small I look this time. Maybe all those lovely tent-style maternity tops I've worn in the past really weren't flattering after all. Ha!

Weight gain? 24lbs. I'm holding steady at about a 1lb. gain each week. And how many weeks do I have left?!?!?  :)

Sleep? What sleep? Oh, you mean those 45 minutes where I close my eyes briefly in between my hourly potty breaks? OK, well, then it's going fine.

Best Moment of the Week? Watching Ben literally bounce off my belly. I came home from work one day and Ben came running up to me to get a hug. His head ran right into my belly and he seriously bounced right off and fell on the floor. I laughed so hard. Er... I mean, of course I checked to make sure Ben was OK first. Then I laughed really hard.

Gender? I learned from my friend Becky that technically, this question should be "Sex?" Because "sex" is the chromosomal male or female DNA we are born with and "gender" is the sex we self-identify with. So there you go!  :)  Although, I suppose just the word "sex" with a question mark after it would raise a few eyebrows....

What I'm looking forward to? Um, still looking forward to pulling out all the baby stuff and getting the house ready to welcome our little one. I didn't very far in that arena since my last update.

Emotions? I'm just excited! I'm still feeling good compared to my other pregnancies so all I'm feeling is excitement! It's nice to be able to just relish this time with the baby and watch the other kids experiencing it all too.