31 July 2016

31/52 - When's The Baby?

As of July 31st, we have entered week 37 of this pregnancy: officially full term. Hooray! We're still driving in to Portland every week for monitoring and ultrasounds. Baby is approximately 47% percentile overall, with an estimated weight last week around 5 lbs, 11 oz. We're in the home stretch, and everything still looks good (mostly - see August 1).

Probably the most common question that an expectant family gets is this: When is your due date? For us, that answer for us is easy: August 20, about three weeks away. But while that is the question people ask, it isn't really the question that people want answered. What they really want to know is: When will the baby arrive? That is, of course, a question that is much more difficult to answer with any certainty. But here is what we know...

Wednesday, July 27
Anders was born at 36.5 weeks, just shy of full term. If this baby had only made it that far, he would have arrived last week.

Monday, August 1
This baby is breech. The normal position for delivery is head down, and most babies naturally orient themselves that way as the delivery approaches. But ours has not. He's been hanging out hammock-style for the last two and a half months with no signs of turning on his own. On Monday, we will be trying to manually turn him, and by "we" I mean our doctor and a group of specialists, of course. There's a small risk that the attempts to turn the baby may cause us to actually deliver - but hopefully not.

Saturday, August 13th
This is when we reach 39 weeks. As a consequence of "advanced maternal age" (i.e. over 35...), our doctor recommends scheduling a delivery for some time this week.

Saturday, August 20th
40 weeks, aka due date. It is very unlikely that the pregnancy will proceed this far.


Of course, the other question that people ask is about gender. We have known the answer for some time, but here is an ultrasound photo from a recent visit just in case.



Meanwhile, we're doing the last minute planning and packing. We've made progress on choosing a name, down-selecting from the original list of ~200 down to a final 10. The newly arrived infant car seat is loaded in the car (the one we saved from when Anders was a baby had expired - doh!), and we're packing our hospital bags.

Wish us luck!

- Mike, Corinne, Anders and ??

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