Rock Star

Today is February 13.  Date-wise, I’m a month away from my due date, March 13. Officially, tomorrow I will be 36 weeks, just 4 weeks from my due date. No wonder figuring out pregnancy due dates, weeks, and months are so difficult. Months aren’t even standard to start with.

So tomorrow, despite whatever Hallmark says, we’re celebrating 36 weeks of pregnancy. I feel good, I’m not on bed rest, and Samantha is a rock star!

I’ll admit I’ve had my ups and downs. The past two weeks were kind-of down. I don’t know why, but every little thing started to aggravate me. Then last Tuesday at my doctor’s appointment my blood pressure was up. I spent the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday aggravated and worried, and I dreaded Thursday’s appointment. But on Thursday things started to turn around again. Surprisingly, my BP reading was one of the lowest I’ve ever had.  While I was hooked up to the monitors, a nurse peeked in through the blind from the nurses’ office next door. When my nurse came back, she said, “Have you met Nurse J.? She’s new and peeked in to see Samantha’s printout. Samantha is a rock star around here!”  I’m so proud!

Samantha isn’t usually as active during the day as she is in the morning and evening. But at the end of last week, she was kicking with enough regularity in the afternoon that I decided to share with a friend. “Look, watch my belly.” After seeing my belly twitch, my friend asked if she could feel the kicks. She was able to feel Samantha kick about 3-4 times within a couple of minutes.  My friend’s reaction was priceless, and lifted my spirits even further.  

The third trimester is pressing on me… literally. I went out shopping this weekend at Lane Bryant. They always like to fold everything nice and neat before putting it in the bag. But I had to use the restroom, so as polite as I could (despite beginning to panic), I told the cashier that my baby was kicking me in my bladder and that she could just shove everything in the bag without folding. I know Samantha hasn’t even dropped yet, but now that she is head-down, I feel a lot more pressure and discomforts than before. The discomforts don’t matter though, because Samantha is a rock star!

Since most of you won’t get to feel Samantha kick, I was finally able to get some videos of her evening antics. Here is the short clip: 

 And you can watch a longer clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNucX6qGtGc

Other than my belly going up and down from breathing (and more rapidly when I giggle), I am sitting very still. If you watch closely you can see twitches from Samantha's kicks, and then when she shifts and pushes, my belly pushes up and moves back and forth sideways.