baby bump: week 36

Can someone please tell me where the last 9 months have gone?  How are we only 4 weeks (24 days – again, not that I’m counting) away from meeting our little girl?  My feelings about being this close to my due date have been a crazy roller coaster ride.  Some days, I will be excited and so ready to meet her; while other days, I’m questioning whether or not we are really ready to take on the role of parents.  As much as I really, really want to meet our baby girl, I am still so scared to become a mom.  “They” say you have 9 months to prepare for your baby, but there are days when I feel like I need 9 more months to be adequately prepared…

With just 4 weeks left, I am also panicking about all we have left to do.  I went from having just a few what I thought were manageable things to get done to being completely overwhelmed with my now growing to-do list.  After the shower this past weekend, Baby M’s nursery went from being pretty much ready to being a complete disaster.  Clothes, boxes, toys, etc. are everywhere.  I can hardly walk into her room right now without tripping over something.  (I have a feeling this is a preview of what I have to look forward to in a few months/years.)  I am very slowly making progress with the nursery + to-do list, but I feel like I have taken about 10 steps backwards.

Tomorrow we start weekly OBGYN visits until the baby arrives.  Apparently, these are the “hard” visits, as in checking to see if I’ve made any progress.  Although I know being dilated + effaced pretty much mean nothing for when labor will really start, I’d still like to know if I’m just a little bit closer to meeting my child.  As of right now, I don’t think I’ve experienced a single contraction – real or “practice”.  My stomach will get hard for a couple of seconds, which can be a little uncomfortable, but definitely not painful at all.  So, I’m not sure if these are contractions or something entirely different.

My biggest complaint lately has been groin pain.  It’s the same pain I experienced back at 27 weeks, when I was sitting a lot during the day.  I am fortunately enough to have a pretty lengthy lunch + plan period during the day, which involves a lot of sitting, so I have a feeling it’s just my round ligaments acting up again.

OK, enough complaining on my part… here’s the big ol’ belly you were waiting for:

I’ve had a few people say they think I might have dropped a little bit, but since I am still continuously being punched in the ribs, I’m pretty sure she’s holding strong up high.

I honestly think I’m going to miss my belly.  I’ve grown pretty attached to it and the little bug inside of it.  I’m to the point where I don’t remember what it was like NOT to have this baby inside of me.  Sure, I miss my skinny jeans + smaller clothes, but I love being able to rub my belly and feel her kicks and rolls constantly.  I am really going to miss that feeling.

I am still in disbelief that we are thisclose to our due date.  It still feels surreal that we will soon be meeting our little girl and will officially be a family of 3 (plus, one furbaby).  4 weeks will go by faster than I can even imagine!