33 Weeks

Only about 7 weeks to go! Lately the worst of my symptoms seem to have gone away, knock on wood. My varicose veins don't really bother me and the restless legs have quieted down. My worst problem the last few days is the inability to breathe. Sometimes I feel like I just can't catch my breath. I guess that's what happens when you've got a butt in your lungs.

Thus far I have held off on putting together a "hospital" bag. Like if the baby thinks I'm ready, she'll come too early. How silly is that?! But yesterday I started at least compiling a list. I was wondering the timing of things during my labor so I went back and looked at the time stamps on pictures from that day. At 1:45pm I was sitting in a hospital bed getting monitored (they did it for 15 minutes every hour) eating a dish of chocolate pudding with a big smile on my face. At that point my water had been broken for about 12 hours but I was obviously not in serious labor! The next picture I have was taken about 4:30pm and I was just starting to work through some serious contractions. If I remember correctly, a check previous to that had me at about 4cm dilated. About half an hour later things started really heating up and I went into the shower (I wanted to labor in water but the room with the only jacuzzi at that hospital wasn't available). G was born at about 7:40pm. Looking at that timeline, I realize that I only had about 3 hours of true labor. Wow! Sure seemed like more than that. The coolest thing is that G was nursing a mere 10 minutes after she was born!

It was neat to look back at the pictures and I would highly recommend that you have hubby or someone take some during your labor. Even if you never show them to anyone (notice I'm not posting any of mine here!), the timeline they can give you is invaluable to compare with what you remember of the day.

The next batch of pictures I have is from the next day. In most of them, I am in the hospital gown nursing G. Of course, they don't make hospital gowns to nurse in, so in all these pictures I'm pretty exposed. Which brings me to my list. This time around I'm taking my own nursing pajamas! There is also a picture of me nursing her just before we left the hospital and I'm wearing a maternity shirt hiked up so you can see my squishy belly. Also definitely on the list is a nursing shirt and bra. Live and learn! The other thing that's currently on my list? A bottle of wine! Apparently this hospital has a nice supper for the new parents and I intend to top that off with a nice glass of wine!