37 weeks

*The baby is now ... 6.5 pounds! FULL TERM!

*How I'm feeling: I'm feeling rather full term these days. The belly is all kinds of big and low. I tried pushing on it last night to pop the little guy out, but it didn't work. ;) All in all, I'm still doing well. The joints in my hands and feet hurt pretty much all the time. According to Google, this is due to the hormone relaxin that is released to "relax" the pelvis so the Rhino can come out more easily (sounds good to me!). But the hormone doesn't just relax the pelvis, it can "relax" the joints in other areas of your body, too, namely your feet. That's why some women's feet grow with each pregnancy. The feet expand and then never retract!! I've been hoping that won't happen to me, but the joint pain I'm feeling leads me to believe that it will. I've come to terms with it, though - little man is worth it! Besides, if some joint pain is all I have to complain about at 37 weeks, then I'm going to count my blessings.

*Physical differences from last week: He continues to get low, get low, get low! More people are commenting now on how they can tell that he has dropped. The low pressure I feel most of the time now confirms that. He is most definitely running out of room. Every little shift in position now feels like he is clawing at various organs, desperately trying to bust out. (If you're ready, go toward the light, little guy!!)

My clumsiness is increasing. I run into everything (sorry, toes). I can no longer get off the floor without Mike hoisting me (and he usually grunts when he does it... nice). Well, I can get up on my own; I just have to do it in several phases with breaks between moves. Even getting down to the floor has become a challenge. I was getting ready to paint yesterday (more on that to come), and my belly and clumsiness combined and I sort of half-sat/half-fell to the floor. I'm sure it was not pretty. But hey, when you gotta paint, you gotta paint, right?!

*What's been on my mind: Holyjeezwe'regonnahaveababysoon! Now when I schedule meetings at work, I wonder whether I'll actually attend them. When I come in on Monday mornings, my co-workers are half surprised to see me. Everything we plan comes with the caveat "unless I go into labor before then."

I've also been thinking a lot about the upcoming holidays and how he'll be here with us for them. We've got his Halloween costume already. We've really got to get a bigger table for Thanksgiving dinner to accommodate two extra people -- my soon-to-be brother-in-law AND my son! We've got warm clothes for him for his first trip to Sedona to see the Christmas lights. It's going to be a great year. :)

*What I'm looking forward to: Labor. Can you believe I just said that? Labor is the thing I've been scared of since about 5 minutes after I read "pregnant" on that test on New Year's Eve. But now I'm looking forward to it, hoping every day for signs that it has arrived. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night to a particularly strong Braxton Hicks contraction and hoped it was the real thing. I've never been so excited to have a strong cramp! Alas, it was nothing, but my excitement over it was sort of amusing. This is why women are pregnant for so long -- so you have time to get over the fear and arrive at a place of "I've been pregnant long enough, I want to meet my baby, let's DO this."

*Other random thoughts: I must say... in case it isn't obvious yet... I am married to the best guy in the world. He has spent countless weekends doing whatever baby preparation I am currently obsessed with. He's gone to tons of classes, put together about 50 different pieces of assorted baby gear, hung tons of stuff on walls. He has spent hours (days?) at Babies R Us. Two or three of those visits have coincided with a Phillies game that was tied in the ninth inning (and yes, he is noticeably more distracted when this happens, checking his phone every 15-30 seconds for the score... but that's to be expected). He has cooked 99.9 percent of the meals we've eaten at home since January. He rubs my back every single night because it's the only way to get rid of the restlessness that hits me at night and prevents me from sleeping.

And it's not even that he does this stuff, but that he wants to and even enjoys doing it. We were at Babies R Us again on Saturday, using some gift cards to buy up a couple of last minute items off our registry, and we decided to check out the toys. We were looking for one in particular that was on our registry and couldn't find it, but he came across another one -- a stuffed octopus that plays a bunch of songs. He played with it for several minutes as I looked at other toys, and he finally said, "This is awesome. It can go anywhere with him! I'm getting this," and walked away with it under his arm. It melts my heart when I see him get that excited about something for our little guy. It's so clear that he would do anything for me and our son, and I love him so much for that.