Week 34 of the JellyBean Progression

Week 34

Routine Dr visit today. Nothing exciting except that I’m measuring 32 cm this week, which means I’m 2 cm small…and so Dr O wants me to have ANOTHER growth ultrasound in two weeks. Seriously, this must just be her thing. Whatevs. The funny part is that I feel HUGE – or more like, the baby feels huge. My belly just feels like it’s already at capacity and I can’t imagine JellyBean NOT being big enough at this point. Guess we’ll see, but my gut feeling is that the scan will tell us the same thing as last time.

For some reason – maybe wishful thinking, maybe just because I feel huge or whatever – but for some reason I just keep feeling like JellyBean is going to come early. At the very least, I don’t think she’s going to go a week overdue like Fletch did.

I do feel like everything in my belly is totally crowded. Am out of breath all the time, still can’t eat much at once and boy oh boy, is she walloping me some good ones. Her small parts (feet, hands, arms, legs etc) are all over on the right side and boy is she shoving things around in there. We are now at the Alien stage, where at any given time, you can look at my belly and see it lurching around independently. The bad part of this is that this is one strong kid. She is kicking my ass with some of these movements. It’s less kicking now and more slow, fluid movement and so there is a lot of pressure. VERY FIRM PRESSURE. What is it over on your right side, your liver? Appendix? Diaphragm? Whatever it is, JellyBean is stomping the crap out of it.

The worst part is of course, that she acts up the most when I lie down to go to sleep. Then all of a sudden, it’s rodeo practice time. The other night it was hurting so much I was crying. It was never like this with Fletch since he was faced differently. JellyBean also doesn’t like when I sit too slouched so a lot of times I’m sitting in whatever chair all leaned back and as stretched out as I can, otherwise she starts pushing at me to make some room for her. Ugh!

Um, good news is that the ANGRY LADYPARTS have calmed down somewhat. I ended up getting a maternity support belt that I wear sometimes which helps TREMENDOUSLY. But I can’t wear it all day long or it just makes other stuff hurt. It sure does take the pressure off the ladyparts and hoists up the heavy belly, which is nice. Also still no heartburn or back pain, yay. Sleeping is still hit or miss, though.

So this week, JB should be about 4 ¾ lbs and 18 inches and gaining fat. Central nervous system is maturing but generally babies with no other health problems born starting now do well. So if my gut feeling that JellyBean is coming early turns out right, she should be a-ok. However, we should probably get the crib put up and get some clothes washed and such so I don’t have the naked-baby-sleeping-in-a-drawer syndrome I did with Fletch. I did at least buy curtains for both kids rooms this weekend, so that’s a start.