A Boy and His Blog

Archive for July 8th, 2010

I am now in the ninth month (37th week) of pregnancy. During the next 5 weeks (37 to 42) a baby is considered full-term and ready to be born if the mother goes into labor. When baby’s lungs are ready to breath air, it will release a protein that puts the mother into labor. Owen was born on his due date, and my guess is that this baby will also be born within a few days, give or take, of the due date. Of course, there is no telling when the baby will be born over these next few weeks, so we are trying to get all prepared for the big event.

As for the birth, we needed to order an assembled birth kit online, assemble or gather together another list of items, and rent a birth tub. I now have the birth kit and the assembled items all together in a convenient location. There are a few items I still need to add, such as the towels, but for the most part I got everything ready and set out today. The birth tub was supposed to be delivered today, but it will now be delayed until Saturday morning. We have a corner of the living room that we are planning to set it up in. This is the best location because it will minimize any noise that neighbors could possibly hear by placing the tub so there are rooms and walls and stairwells between them and me. Since I’m expecting a fast labor, we will eventually start filling the tub and keeping the water heated and then dumping and refilling it every three days. This way we won’t have to worry about filling the tub in time for the birth and I won’t have to climb into a half filled tub if things go quickly.

I also have some items of my own assembled for the birth. These are things from candles to necklaces to stones that I plan to use in different ways to cope with the pain.

We took Birthing From Within classes once a week for six weeks. The classes went really well and are now complete. The instructor asked me if I would like to meet with her privately once since it is difficult to mix bran new parents with parents who are trying to move past a previous traumatic birth experience. I took her up on the offer and we will meet next week. I was really pleased with the class and the pain coping techniques I learned. At the last class we did an exercise where we dip our entire hand into ice water several times and go through all the coping techniques we have learned. I felt really good about my ability to cope with pain after that exercise. I’ve learned ways of dealing with pain that I didn’t know about before, and I really hope they keep me more calm and more relaxed during this labor. Also at the last class, the partners left the room at the end and returned with a foot bath and chocolate covered strawberries. Now that is my kind of birthing class! James had bought some lavender scent to put in my foot bath so it was extra nice

We have all the baby’s things and clothes ready. I was recently offered a very nice changing table/dresser and so will be getting that soon as well. I also bought some nursing nightgowns and bras for after baby is born. I also have about four freezer meals made up so far and will soon have one more. I want to make 10 meals total, so I have to get busy with that soon!

So things are getting close, and it will only be a few weeks or less now until baby arrives!