Baby CL's World: April edition

I can't tell you how excited I was when I logged in Monday morning and saw that little baby in my ticker head down. :) Everybody is getting ready to come out! I'm very thrilled.

One of the things that I gave up for Lent (yes, seriously) is complaining about pregnancy discomforts. It was really getting me down. And as a consequence, I've been feeling a lot more positive about everything. So, I'll be factual about everything, but with a positive spin.

I will admit, 34 weeks is about the point where things up the ante a bit. 36 weeks will be the real tester, but I can feel things beginning now. That's what I expected, and here's the positive angle: I have less than 6 weeks to go until my due date! I mean, that's nothing. It's going to fly by.

I did look at some pictures of me from last year recently, and I felt myself start to long to look like that again. So, I stopped looking. :) I loved my body. It wasn't a perfect body, and it had already been through one full-term pregnancy, but I truly loved it and I really hope that I look like that again. Having gone through this once already, I feel confident that I will, or very close to it. Pregnancy does not mean that you're doomed to look frumpy for the rest of your life. If you work at it in the time after you deliver, you'll be thrilled with the way you look again. It may take some time, but it can happen.

On a very positive note, I can honestly say that I'm not nearly as uncomfortable this time as I was at this same point in my pregnancy with Henry. This is not to say, mind you, that I'm *comfortable*. That would be so positive as to be positively misleading. :) But I'm much less uncomfortable, and for that I'm grateful. The baby is so much lower this time. I've been able to breathe normally and digest food like a champ for the past month. You know, the little things.

My sciatica is rearing its ugly head a bit in the evenings, but I don't feel like a 90 year old like I did last time. Oh my goodness, some mornings I could barely get out of bed it was so bad. This time, it's cake.

I've been inspecting my belly religiously and applying cocoa butter every night. Will this ward off stretch marks? Probably not, but I like to try anyway. :) I only got a few, real low, from Henry, and am hoping for the same this time. Since I'm a belly dancer, I'd love to not have them right in front of my belly, so here's hoping. I will say though, even if you get them, stretch marks fade. They look all red and angry at first, but pretty soon they become thin silver lines. It's not so bad.

Ok, so this post is supposed to be about the baby, and I've managed to make it all about me. Because it's all about ME all the time, right? :) He or she is getting very big. When they move around, it actually hurts sometimes. :) They are head down. I can feel hiccups coming from down there, and feet in my ribs, so all is well.

I was at the doctor yesterday, and Baby CL's heartbeat sounds perfect and their growth is right on target. I go back in 2 weeks, and this will officially start the "less pleasant" ob. visit rotation. My practice screens all patients for Group B Strep at that visit, and then the "checking" begins. You know what I mean. Ugh.

But in the home stretch, I'm feeling genuinely good. I'm excited and happy, and can't wait to meet Baby CL. I'm about to begin the Hypnobirthing book that I bought used on Amazon, so I will review that as soon as I'm done. I'm not totally sold on it, but hey; I'll try anything.