Week 38: Full term, and, um, ouch.

37 weeks, 1 day.

So. Small Monster is fully-cooked. Let us rejoice!

(Yayyyyy…)

This, of course, means nothing. Just as finding out today at my OB’s appointment that I am 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced means nothing, because women walk around for weeks like that sometimes.

The fact that my cervix is open and I’ve been cramping some since yesterday, though, that may or may not mean something. (And I just realized how creepy me talking about my cervix openly probably is to my male friends, right up there with talking about breastfeeding from a personal point of view (something I know freaked my friend out at lunch the other day hehehe… go me!), but all I can do is apologize and say “get over it” )

Unfortunately, the baby isn’t quite low enough yet, so I’ve been given exercises to encourage him to, shall we say, ease on down the road, and she stripped my membranes (which she’ll do at both of my next appointments), because I think they really want to encourage this kid to get a move on. He’s not “too big” now, but she made it clear that we didn’t really want him to go past his due date because he’s right on the edge. I know people have a lot of feelings about stripping membranes (which is basically just, as Mrs. Mustard put it so eloquently the other day, “activity in [Small Monster's] domain”, only rather aggressively), but if this baby gets ready to go and some little things encourage it, I am not going to complain.

And if he turns out to be the Thanksgiving turkey, all the better. Unlikely, but hey, stranger things have happened.

Now, the bad news is I’m all uncomfortable. Cramps, pressure, you name it. It’s like a PMS preview for after the baby is born. I can live with it – labor is going to be much worse – but my pelvis is busy getting all stretched out and that isn’t terribly comfortable. Plus there are the cramps. I hate cramps. I guess I should get used to it.

The really bad news is that my blood pressure went back up – I think it was probably a fluke (I’d just walked a long way), and I don’t have any other symptoms, but they want to keep an eye on me for pre-eclampsia anyway. I don’t mind, really… better safe than sorry, and it means I get to see my OB on Monday instead of Wednesday next week (they worked to fit me in), so all good.

Anyhow. That’s this week’s report from Ob/Gyn wonderland. I’m off to take a nap. It’s been a long morning. I’m still a little behind on NaNo, but I got to within 756 words of catching up last night, and so after I finish this German take-home final (which requires watching movies online… whee!), I’ll get back to it.

Somehow, I don’t think Small Monster will let me make it to 50k, but hey, we can always hope (Actually, on second thought, maybe I should be hoping he doesn’t let me make it to 50k!)