37 Week Update

37 Weeks along and now I can actually say I'm full term. I swear the last month has flown by unlike the rest of the pregnancy! As of today, I have 17 days left until Noah's scheduled arrival. Yikes.

At home, we've been getting ready bit by bit. Sunday night we tackled a huge, huge laundry backet and another under bed storage bin of Connor's clothes. I've been dreading this for a couple reasons. First, we kept everything from Connor. Some of these onesies were so nasty, so nasty. Anyway, we kept them...because they were his. I knew it would be horrible trying to sort through them to decide what goes and what stays. Second, I'm really not big on the idea of hand me downs. Not at all. I feel like second born is going to have enough "second baby stigma" and could at least have all their own clothing! But, this just doesn't make sense when Connor has some clothes he barely wore, or didn't honestly wear even one time. I felt like we were on that awesome show on TLC...damn what was it called? The British guy hosted it and they took over a family's home and made them clean out a disgusting room that would make the people on Hoarders: Burried Alive groan. They had to divvy the items up in three piles: Keep, Toss, Sell or something like that. Anyway, we had a "Keep for Connor" pile full of sentimental outfits and items, "Keep for Noah" full of perfect or near-perfect items and a trash pile of items way too disgusting to keep for any reason. We have more to go through and then need to wash any "keep for noah" stuff but progress is progress. With just over two weeks left, we'd better get in gear.

I'm feeling the same, pretty good. Sleeping is getting even more difficult, but I swear that's just the body's way of practicing for when you have a newborn and you're lucky to get 3-4 hours of sleep a day. I still haven't had any contractions and Noah is still moving like crazy so I'm hoping we've got some time still. I wore heels today which I'm positive will be a mistake. The height doesn't bother me, but they feel really tight today. (I also brought a pair of flip flops that are safely tucked away in my purse in case an emergency shoe swap becomes necessary.) Um, I found a couple dresses in my closet that I haven't worn in forever that are just easy wearing with stretch so I've got a couple more options to get me through the next couple work weeks. I haven't purchased any maternity clothing this time around, just making do with the few items I bought when I had Connor, some dresses sans waistline and some creative hairtie work with pants! I refuse to buy anything new at this point...I'm way, way too close and will have zero use for it again. Here's a pic of me stretching today's dress to its absolute limit :)

17 days to go...the belly does not lie!

CLEAN SWEEP! that was the name of the TLC show. Ahhhh. :)

Two of my best, best friends Dawn and Ashley surprised me with a huge bag of wonderful gifts for Noah...including receivers, onesies and other little outfits, sleepers, bath supplies, hooded towels (cutest thing ever on baby...) and wash cloths. If you've had a kid you know that while the adorable shoes, hats, pacifier holders and other items are fun to buy and receive...the above items are the hard-core can't get enough of them items. I swear after I had Connor I shopped for other peoples baby showers with a whole new purpose!! Clearly, so do Dawn & Ash because they loaded me up with the necessities. Thanks ladies :) And last week I met up with Jill for lunch who gave Noah the cutest, flippin owl blanket. I love it so much!

According to my trusty emails, Noah is probably about 6 1/3 lbs at this point and maybe 19 inches. This is a bit bigger than Connor when he was born. The guessing game of baby size makes it really tough to pack his hospital bag...we had no idea that Connor would be so small so everything we brought to the hospital was at least 4 months ahead of him...Jeff had to run out and buy preemie stuff for him to wear home. This time we're going to bring a few things in a few sizes. We'll see--Jeffrey was 10.5 lbs so you never really know what we'll get!

I have my 37 week doctor appointment tonight so I'll post an update with any details that come up there. I'm just hopeful that I didn't gain another 7lbs :) I could handle one or two lbs...but seven?!?! Hopefully when he checks me, he'll tell me that there's no action in the cervix area and that as far as he can tell Noah is happily hanging out for 17 more days. That's the goal, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

Thanks for checking in on the growing Barnes family! Have a great Tuesday.