Can’t believe I’m in the home stretch. I don’t know why, but it feels like a big deal going from 29 weeks to 30 weeks. Maybe that’s because you often hear about babies born at 30something weeks. Obviously we want to keep him baking until as close to 40 as possible, but it wouldn’t be abnormal for him to come around 37 or 38 weeks, either. We’re in the 30s, folks. Just crazy to think about.
My parents came over on Saturday evening — their last night in town before they started their move to Texas Sunday morning. It was nice to spend the evening with them and to see them off, but sad to see them go. They’ll be back a couple weeks after the baby is born, though, which will be nice, and then I think we’re going to try to make it down there for Thanksgiving this year (baby’s first plane trip – yikes!). Thankfully they’ll only be in Texas for two years and then my dad will retire and they’ll move up here again permanently.
Had a nice walk around Greenlake yesterday with my friend Molly, whom I used to work with. She is due in just three days! They are also having a boy. It’s fun to be able to talk about pregnancy stuff with other people who are going through it. After I got home, I parked myself in front of the TV and ended up falling asleep for several hours! I almost never nap on the couch (I’m one of those picky sleepers who can only fall asleep in my own bed), but the long walk and the cold air must have really taken it out of me. I’m definitely feeling myself slowing down. I woke up a few hours later and watched the Oscar red carpet coverage, and then D got home from snowboarding and we watched the Oscars. It was overall a pretty lazy Sunday, which was nice.
Okay, here’s what’s going on at 30 weeks…
Baby is about 16-18 inches long and weighs about 3 lbs. He should be surrounded by approximately a pint and a half of amniotic fluid, though that amount will peak soon before it slowly starts decreasing as he gets bigger and takes up more room. Brain activity is picking up speed this week, and his eyesight is developing more, even though he can’t really see anything from his current point of view! I learned today that babies are born with about 20/400 eyesight, which means they can’t see much beyond a few inches from their face.
Mama is feeling large. As you can see below, I snapped a picture last week wearing the same outfit I wore in my 18 week photo. The scary thing is, I remember feeling large at 18 weeks, and looking back on that photo makes me miss my old body. Look how small I was! This distorted perspective actually makes me very scared of how big I’ll be in another 10 weeks! Will I be looking back at my 30 week photo thinking I was small?! Yikes! The sciatic pain seems to have diminished for the most part (knock on wood), though I did notice it came back on Saturday after vacuuming the house. Gained 1 lb. this week for a total now of 18 lbs. Still no stretch marks, but stomach muscles are still very achy, especially after I eat. On Saturday evening I sneezed and felt like I actually pulled a muscle in my side. Super painful. I think I’m just out of room. Hopefully my muscles loosen up at some point and allow me to stretch some more, since clearly I am going to get quite a bit bigger in the next 10 weeks!
Keeping up with the Hoffmans 