30-32 Weeks

Well, I'm not getting much better at keeping this thing updated!  I blame school work because I now have a schedule incompatible with this update (for the record I will not be able to update on Tuesdays or Wednesdays anymore because I have class until 9:30pm both nights) and also a ridiculous amount of busy work for my teaching seminar class.  I'm having to stay on top of it by making an actual homework schedule, something that I'm not sure I've ever done in my entire academic life.  It's all compounded by the fact that I deliberately front loaded all the work I could for this quarter just in case Ginny does end up making an early appearance...

We had our 30 week appointment (every two weeks now) and the awesome news is that judging by an external exam and the location of Ginny's heartbeat with the doppler, it looks like she actually flipped!!  Yay!!  Hopefully this will be confirmed by ultrasound next Tuesday at our 32 week appointment and put the kibosh on the whole scheduled c-section talk.  Fingers crossed!  That's about the most exciting news from the appointment, they're actually pretty boring at this stage.  Another growth ultrasound scheduled for next week though!

Went for a little shopping excursion this weekend, picked up our car seat and stroller travel system.  I wanted to get it so we could install it in the next few weeks (you're supposed to have the seat in the car and ready to go by 35 weeks) but of course Henry can't resist a project when it's staring him in the face so it was installed the next morning.  Here are some pictures of our new beautiful stroller and the most excellent job Henry did of installing the car seat!

We also bought a few cute little outfits for this winter that were just too adorable to resist.  Strangely they are almost all pink after we swore up and down to severely limit the pink explosion.  Oh well, next few outfits will have to be yellow or green or something.  Not posting pictures of the outfits, we'll show them to you all when there's actually a baby in them :-)

• What's the Baby Doing?: Baby is continuing to steadily gain weight, about a half a pound per week until about the 37th week.  The baby is practicing breathing causing lots of bouts of hiccups.  Baby's lungs are now more developed, but not yet fully mature.  Lanugo, the soft layer of hair covering the baby, is starting to fall off and will lose most of it before birth.  The baby has grown to the point of being pretty crowded and movements will feel less and less over the coming weeks.  Almost all babies born at this age will survive and have a normal life.
• Weight Gain: Doing good, right on track.  Doctor is happy and I'm trying not to think about it.

• Showing?: Belly gets in the way of everything.  Everything! 

• Symptoms?: Had heartburn pretty bad a couple times, but tums seem to do the trick.  I'm definitely more tired than before, actually even took a nap today!  I also definitely have my hungry hippo days where I can't seem to stop eating.  I've got an amazing sweet tooth right now, but trying to keep from eating totally non-nutritious things.  I've decided cocoa-puffs are perfectly healthy when eaten with milk (calcium!).
• Sleep: Sleep is not any better than before.  In fact I am now up at least twice per night to use the restroom.  We bought a little wedge thing that's actually supposed to be a newborn support for a boppy, but I'm currently using it as a belly support at night.  The worst part is my hips are killing me!  I was getting leg cramps at night too, but I seem to have that under control.  Now if only I could figure out how to make my hips better, life would be almost comfortable.
• Movement: She's still pretty active, no matter what the books say.  But it's a lot more pushing and moving than kicks and punches.  It's like she's stretching or something, it move my belly around something crazy.  Definitely alien-like.  Between that and the hiccups, it seems like she'll never stop moving.
• Best Moment of the Week(s): Finding out she's head down!  Yay again!  The big question was whether or not she could flip out of the breech position so hopefully if she's still head down on the ultrasound that won't be an issue any longer.  We knew she could do it all along!
• What I Miss: Sleeping through the night.  Doesn't seem like that will change any time soon though.
• What I'm Looking Forward To: Ultrasound on Tuesday!  Always wonderful to see Ginny again and I can't wait for the confirmation about her position. 
• Milestones: It's really comforting to know that if Ginny was born right now she would most likely be just fine.  Of course we want her to stay in there and keep cooking, but if worst came to worst, it's good to know we've reached that point.
• Henry's Quote of the Week: When putting together a stroller in record time, which all the reviews had said was notoriously difficult to assemble, Henry scoffed "Bah, I've been putting in cotter pins since I was two!"
• Henry also gets a special husband/father gold star for today (nothing out of the ordinary really) because I was really tired and hot after a long walk so when we came home he made up the bed for me, turned the fan on, put a glass of ice water by the bed and forced me to take a nap after giving me a back rub.  How lucky am I?! 

So I'll try to post next weekend again, as it's a bit easier for me than during the week right now.  Hopefully I'll manage to stay on the ball.  Or I'll just wait until enough people start bugging me about it again! :-)