Thirty-Five Weeks

35 weeks marks a fun pregnancy milestone: 35 weeks done and 35 days (5 weeks) to go! This was a busy week for us, as you can see in the highlights below:

• No Turning Back: At our 35-week appointment (our last bi-weekly - now we go weekly!), my favorite OB in our practice told us that while we aren't considered full-term until 37 weeks, if labor were to start, they'd no longer try to stop it! That means whenever Baby Girl decides to make her appearance, all systems are go - holy cow! The truth is that I'd be thrilled if the baby came a few weeks early, but it's just so unlikely that I'm not getting my hopes up. In fact, I asked the doctor about induction. She said I can go as long as 42 weeks before they'd require me to be induced, at which point I told her I was done talking about this with her. ;o) This is such a good primer for parenthood: we have so little control!
• Say My Name: R and I have officially committed to a name for our daughter, and it is just *so* lovely! It's been my favorite name for the past 4+ years (as evidenced by a list I found that I had written soon after moving to MN in 2007) and while it wasn't the top name on our joint list when we initially began dreaming up names, we just couldn't shake it! R has been calling the baby by this name for months now, but I was holding out just in case something "better" caught my eye. This week I gave up the search and ordered some adorable white wooden letters in order to put the baby's name on the wall, so that makes it pretty official. We love the name and it's deliciously fun to have a little secret that only we (and the baby) know for now. :o)
• Come Clean: I found myself with a ton of energy over the weekend and put it to use doing some pre-Thanksgiving deep cleaning of our house. The most noteworthy accomplishment was the complete purging, cleaning and organization of our refrigerator. I told R that I kept walking past the fridge and it was like it was calling out to me to set it in order, so I finally just had to give in! I'm glad I did it, as the groceries we bought today for our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow filled up the newly-empty fridge in no time!
• Let's Eat! R and I only worked Monday and Tuesday of this week, so today we were free to start our Thanksgiving preparations in earnest. We picked up our pre-ordered turkey and my long list of ingredients from Whole Foods, Penzey's Spices and Dogwood Coffee. Upon getting home, I dove in: prepared the brine, got the turkey settled in, made cranberry chutney, whipped sweet potatoes, cheese puffs (the French kind!), an apple tart, and chocolate cake(s). It was not entirely smooth sailing, as it involved a fair amount of time on my feet and required near-constant cleaning of the kitchen between dishes. I'm pretty tired! Hosting Thanksgiving at 36 months (which I will be ON Thanksgiving day) seems a little nuts in retrospect, but I feel lucky to have my parents, sister and her boyfriend arrive tomorrow to help finish the meal (more on that next week). It's my favorite holiday and I intend to soak in every moment!\

Okay, because it's been a long day and I need to get some rest for tomorrow's festivities, let's jump to the tracker now. 

Week: 35

Weight: +31 pounds (as of Week 35 - yikes! I cried in exam room and R - sweet man - helped talk/calm me down) 

Baby is the Size of a(n): container of Clementines (a touch over 5 pounds!)

Symptoms: still pretty hungry, round ligament and general "growing" pains, really achy pelvis (SPD), extreme shortness of breath, outrageously swollen feet (so bad!), mental lapses, wacky dreams, trouble sleeping comfortably through the night (because I can't get comfortable, I have to use the bathroom, or I'm hungry!), the beginnings of nesting, and general moodiness (so many breakdowns this week, notably hysterical crying at the trailer for the upcoming movie War Horse AND when I dropped and broke the apple tart I made), and the start of really noticeable Braxton-Hicks contractions (only one or two so far)

Current Obsession: red meat, all the vegetables from our farm share (especially squash and potatoes), apples, grapes, cinnamon applesauce, peanut butter, MILK (still!), vanilla almond milk, and the Signature Latte from our local coffee shop

Current Aversion: not much!

Thinking About: who our little girl will take after; seeing the actual little elbows, knees, hands and feet she's using to poke and jab at me; finishing up the nursery and layette; securing a pediatrician; having our car seat installation checked for safety; writing up our birth plan and packing a hospital bag!

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