37 weeks and the waiting begins

37 weeks along! That's kind of a big week mark to hit in pregnancy as it means that if Twinkle were to be born at this point he would be considered full term. It also opens up the door to water birth officially. I mentioned last week that I'm doing 2 Non-Stress Tests a week from this point on. I had my 3rd one done today, all have been fabulous when it comes to results. Today we were able to get him to stay on the monitor right from the start so it only took 20 minutes vs on Monday where he we were trying to figure out the best place to track him and it took about 50 minutes. Luckily since he's always so active he shows plenty of accelerations within that time to pass considering that he only needs to show 2 of them.

The Non-Stress Tests are actually to monitor the placenta's health. When he shows at least 2 accelerations in a 20 minute period that shows that the placenta is functioning correctly and getting the correct blood supply and oxygen to him for him to continue thriving. No one is honestly concerned that my placenta will deteriorate but since I have that damn Gestational Diabetes label we have to do it to make sure, even though my numbers are still perfect without even really trying or even modifying my diet.

Aydia comes with me on these appointments as I have them all scheduled for around 11am on both Mondays and Thursdays and no one else is of course home at that time to watch her. Both Stephanie and her nurse Kristen compliment her each time on how well behaved she is! She sits happily for the 30-60 minutes it takes to get everything done eating a snack and watching a Veggie Tales movie and occasionally talking with me. She never attempts to wander away from her chair or anything, just sits there as content as can be. THANK GOODNESS! I don't know what I would do if she were a super active child...which is probably what Twinkle will be.

Comparing the two pregnancies I know that he is MUCH more active then Aydia ever was. She moved around of course, but more stretches and never active periods of more then 15-20 minutes and then relatively quiet for at least an hour. Twinkle likes to squirm and squirm and squirm. I get a quiet period out of him for about an hour in the afternoon, other then that he's ALWAYS moving. At night I'm up every 30 minutes at least due to his activity. Seems like every night I'm waking around 4:30 to use the bathroom (thankfully just the one time a night as I'm limiting my water intake in the evenings) but then I'm up till at least 5:30 or 6:00 waiting for him to calm down so I can fall back asleep. We're in for it with this child, I can tell. I swear to you that my labor will start with my water breaking first this time again because he's going to kick or punch so hard one of these times that he's going to rupture the membranes! HA!

Anyway, after the appointment I'm at the same stats as last week, 1 cm and 50% effaced. I feel like he's lower then last week but he's still floating above my pelvis so birth looks to be several weeks away still; which is more then fine with me! I'm choosing my birthing day as May 27th. My doula with Aydia is due right after me and she's choosing the same day. We're both doing HypnoBirth and she is actually a Hypnobirth instructor now and a trained Hypno-therapist. She has made a CD for herself centering around the 27th as her birthing day and is burning me a copy and I should get that early next week to listen to. I'll be 39 weeks and 1 day on the 27th and I've just felt that date resonating with me this whole pregnancy. It will at least be the day my birth process begins, that I honestly feel and believe, part of me thinks he might actually be born early on the 28th though, just like his big sister. Either way, I'm looking forward to birthing my little guy and experiencing birth again. It was such an amazing and empowering experience with Aydia and I'm honestly excited about it. Trust your body, trust your baby, trust birth. :-)