Week 31

9 more weeks to go if I go close to my due date of May 20th!

Your Baby in Week 31 of Pregnancy

As far as growth goes, your baby's still on a roll, measuring an impressive 18 inches and weighing in at more than three pounds. At 31 weeks pregnant, you can still expect your baby to gain at least three to five pounds, possibly more, before you two meet.
 
Your baby's brain is working overtime these days, developing faster than ever. Connections between individual nerve cells are growing at a frenetic clip, and your baby can now perceive information from all five senses. Sure, your baby can't smell anything right now, but that's only because he is still submerged in amniotic fluid and needs to be breathing air to get a whiff of anything. Lucky for you — and your baby — yours will be one of the very first scents your baby breathes in, a scent that will quickly become his very favorite.

So what's your little dove doing all day while you're busy feathering your nest for his arrival? Making faces, hiccuping, swallowing, breathing, pedaling with little hands and feet along your uterine wall, and even sucking his thumb. In fact, some babies suck their thumbs so vigorously while in the womb that they're born with a callus on their thumb.

My Belly info:

Week: 31

Starting weight: 98

Weight now: 120

Fundal height (measurement, in centimeters, of uterus.....usually round abouts equivalent to your gestational week): Oh hell, I don't know. I'm due for my midwife appointment. At my last appointment, the 18th of February, I measured small.  However, I was told it was probably the position of Baby distorting my belly a bit.

Things of note:

I CAN NOT BREATHE. Timothy has not only squished the life out of my lungs, but his feet have taken up residence underneath my ribcage. At times I feel like a dying fish flapping around gasping for air. I felt so miserable last night it took me forever to fall asleep because I really felt like I was suffocating. Hopefully this wont go on for too much longer....should get better whenever Timothy "drops" within the next few weeks (I hope!). 

Over the past 3 weeks the Braxton Hicks (practice contractions....for all those that didn't know what they were) have been pretty regular. I get them every day just about and some times they can be painful, even though they're not suppose to be.

I'm moody. Like SUPER moody. You probably shouldn't look at me the wrong way or come into my house with dirt and mud on your shoes because I'm likely to want to punch you. I can go from calm to blood boiling in a matter of seconds. Sorry dear family. And you probably shouldn't let me listen to a sad song or watch a sad show or say or do anything you think would even remotely hurt my feelings even a little bit because I'm likely to cry buckets. Yesterday we had a horrifically windy day and our $$$ trampoline was blowing away getting all torn and battered. It took all I had to not cry like a baby over it. Luckily Sam rushed home with a friend to rescue it, but we've got to replace the net and a few of the metal legs. Blah.  

Hopefully soon I'll get some maternity photos done. I was on the fence about doing them myself or having them professionally done by my friend's friend. But ultimately I think I'll just wind up doing them. They might not come out exactly like I've been envisioning, but my photos aren't too shabby so I think I'll be satisfied. Sam's a good helper too. If I don't set up my tripod and take and edit them myself, I'll have Sam take them and I'll just edit. I want to make a hair appointment to get my highlights freshened up and I actually have a friend in town who offered to do up my hair the day I take my photos. Maybe she'll help me with makeup too. I'm shooting for the first or second week of April. The weather better be nice! Don't even get me started on how sucky our weather has been recently.

You all know I'm having a home birth with a midwife, right? If you didn't, then obviously you need to read my blog more. :) Recently I've been working on my "birth plan" and starting to prepare myself for having a natural birth at home. I hope to do a whole post on why I chose to use a midwife and have a home birth this time around and tell ya'll about my birth plan.

Here's my 31 week pics! 

With love,

Mama Hauck