2!!!!!

OH MY FREAKIN' GOD! 2 weeks til my due date!!! Why can't it be tomorrow? Doesn't Monday seem like a great day to have a baby?

I have said since week 6 that my estimated due date was late, and that it is a week off, so by my intuition, we have a week or so left! I am hoping even less. I have started getting some painful contractions for the last 2 nights and every time I take the dog on a walk, they start up pretty hard core and last for a few hours, and then just stop...they are teasers! I believe they call it false labor. False, indeed!! Hopefully this means the end is in sight. I am so done carrying her in my belly, it is time to get her in my arms already!!! In the last like 4 days, I got stretch marks on my belly...really... now? After all this time, I get them now at the end? I couldn't have escaped without any of the darned things? They get darker and longer each day! Gross!


Keep hoping that she comes soon!! Send all your prayers my way, in hopes they break my water, ha!

More news: Since I have to go all natural, with the help of my sister in California, Erin, I have found a "doula" or birthing coach, who is trained in natural pain coping techniques, to help during BellaReese's delivery. She is somewhat new to the doula scene, with 5 deliveries under her belt, and she offered to do our birth for free! Usually a "doula" around here can run about $600, but newer ones are even less since they have less experience, but since it is so last minute, she said she would do it for free! She is in nursing school and training to be a midwife, and is extremely nice and we are looking forward to seeing what she is capable of doing! A thousand thanks to Erin for helping us set this all up!

Anyway, here is what is going on with our little stinker this week:

How your baby's growing:
Your baby's waiting to greet the world! She continues to build a layer of fat to help control her body temperature after birth, but it's likely she already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. (Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls.) The outer layers of her skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

The lanugo (an exotic word for soft, downy hair) that used to cover your baby's body has mostly disappeared, but you may find a bit leftover on the shoulders, forehead and neck. Don't freak and think you've given birth to a monkey: It'll fall out soon.The color of baby's skin is changing from a red-pink hue to a white or blue-pink color (even in babes with dark skin). These changes are due to the amount of fat your little pudger is putting on. The circumference of your baby's head and abdomen are about the same size now (though you may not be able to tell if your baby's born with the common cone-shaped head!).The placenta is lending your Mini antibodies that'll keep him strong and healthy after birth. That said, it's still a good idea to invest in that mega-size bottle of hand sanitizer.At this point your little critter is about 19 to 20 inches long and weights about 7 pounds. That's just around the size of a large rabbit. What's up Doc?

How your life's changing:
Head for the hospital or birthing center if you think you're in labor (even if it turns out that you're not!) It's better to make a couple of test runs than to deliver your baby at the local truck stop. If you are in labor but it has just started, the hospital may send you back home, which can be a bit of a buzz kill. But trust us, you'd rather be comfortable in your own home than stuck in a hospital bed with only four TV channels for the next 12 hours waiting to dilate from 1 centimeter to 2.While there is nothing false about the pain that comes with false labor, it's a fake-out because it doesn't dilate the cervix like true labor does. And when you're trying to squeeze a grapefruit out of something the size of a cherry, it's an important distinction. Basically, false labor gives you all of the pain and none of the advancements. Nice, huh?One way to identify false labor is to start timing your contractions. True labor contractions come regularly and get progressively closer together (and they hurt more as they get closer). False labor contractions are about as regular as your bowels since you've been pregnant—not very—and they vary from one to another on the pain meter.False labor is more common in second or subsequent pregnancies than in first pregnancies.