We’re at Week 39 in Project: Grow Baby Mac. I’m getting bigger by the day and both of us are getting very ready to meet the baby. Every time I start to think the baby has run out of room I get a little bit tighter, the little feet find a new corner of my ribs (ouch!), and the little baby bottom sticks out a little farther from my diaphragm. Eventually the kid has got to stop growing, right? Or maybe that’s when it’s birth time.

I know there are lots of Mom’s out there who are religious about taking belly shots each week to watch the progress of their tummies grow.  Well, I’m not one of them.  I was very aware of my growth, but I didn’t particularly want to capture it until halfway through pregnancy.  I felt like I just got thick during the first half… not exactly the ‘pretty pregnancy tummy’ that everyone thinks about.  However, now I feel like I’ve suddenly grown to be huge all of a sudden so I figured I’d post a few pics of the pregnancy to check out the progression.  

My friend Mandy came to visit tonight for dinner, bringing along her son George.  Little George is two weeks old now and very, very sweet.  Seeing Mandy was great – she looks great and is a natural mother.  I LOVED holding little George too.  In fact I probably should’ve given him to J or my friend Leah who was also here, but I didn’t want to give him up.  At one point I held him while I was eating – I told Mandy “I’d better get used to the one-handed eating.”  In reality I didn’t want to give the little guy up.  

We had our last (hopefully) ultrasound today.  No pictures, unfortunately, since Baby Mac is a little bit to squished to be very photogenic.  Seriously, all we could see on the screen was wiggly limbs – no cute little face or anything.  The important news, though, is that the baby is very healthy looking.  The heart, head, kidneys, and leg bones were all examined, in addition to measuring the babies head and tummy size.  They estimate the kiddo weighs in at 5 pounds, 12 ounces right now – but take that number with a grain of salt since ultrasound weight measurements are notoriously inaccurate (up to 2 pounds off sometimes by 40 weeks).  J and I both thought it was funny though that right now the baby weighs more than he did when he was born.  We’ll see if our baby takes after the McPherson side of the family and is born small but ends up growing to be huge.  Seriously, at 6′ J is the runt of his Dad’s side of the family.

FYI – I think I’ve now made it so that you can leave blog comments. I’ve tested it a few different times and think I found the right settings. Sorry if it messed anyone up at first.

I’ve now started my 35 week in pregnancy, so we’re in the final countdown to Baby Mac. I’m trying not to get to excited about the end (still five weeks to go until my due date) – but I’ll be honest that I have my moments where I start to wonder if premature labor is really such a bad thing. I suspect that isn’t going to happen though – for whatever reason I have a feeling that Baby Mac is settled in and won’t be leaving any time soon. The kid seems to be quite comfortable.

I’ve decided the whole 9 months of pregnancy thing is to help the parents get prepared. Sure, Baby is growing and developing but J and I have had a chance to grow and develop from “seriously? We’re having a baby? What do you need for a baby?” to “OK, I think we’re ready.” Of course I suspect we’re not really ready, and won’t be until the baby is here, but at least we have some stuff and have taken some classes. I imagine it’s like driving, you can read the manual, watch videos of people driving, maybe even go and buy new tires, but you can’t really drive until you have a license and are in the car.

Oh the classes! J and I could be accused of being overeducated and, just maybe, nerdy. Our birth class experience is a case in point. I’ve always leaned toward natural childbirth (in theory at least), so I found midwife group who supports natural childbirth and started researching classes to take. Our friends David and Jennilyn recommended The Bradley Method, and after doing some research about the alternative birthing methods, we decided on Bradley. I guess we didn’t investigate Lamaze that closely, but other methods we looked at seemed a little to touchy-feely for us (J is an analytical engineer after all). Bradley isn’t overly touchy-feely (there isn’t any emphasis on creating ‘birth art’ as a way of exploring your feelings about birth, for example) and there’s a lot of time spent understanding what happens physically during labor and delivery so it isn’t as scary for Mom and Dad. It’s called ‘Husband Coached Birth,” which appealed to us. The Bradley Method gives him a specific role and I know he’ll be great at it. He’s a natural “coach.” (Funny story though – when I first told him about Husband Coached Birth he said “I can’t coach! I don’t even know the game!”) Bradley emphasizes relaxing during contractions and letting birth happen instead of fighting it. Like I said above, it’s all theory at this point but J and I have liked it and gotten a lot out of it. My favorite part so far is practicing the relaxation where my job is to breathe deeply and J’s job is to rub my back and whisper encouraging things in my ear J However, not to leave well-enough alone we’ve also taken the birth class through our hospital, a breast feeding class, a newborn care class, and a waterbirth class. I tell ya, if grades were given for parenting preparation I think J and I would at least be A- students. I don’t think I prepared this much for the GMATs or SATs!

As much as we’re getting all prepared for a natural, unmedicated waterbirth (a friend called it “an ethereal waterbirth” – ha!) I try to keep in mind that the main goal is to walk in our front door with a healthy baby. All of our big plans and desires are second to that. Besides, then the real work begins, the stuff they don’t have classes for and that we can’t really prepare for. Until then, however, I’m on the hunt for an Infant CPR class.