Well, we've started counting down the days. As we near our due date, we're growing more and more excited to meet our little guy. Though we know his birth could still be 2 to 6 weeks out, we're preparing for him to be here sooner rather than later. We have one more Childbirth Preparation class left of our 6-week series. Even though it's made our evenings even busier, we've been glad that we took the classes. We've learned quite a lot and I think we're both feeling more comfortable about the whole process now. We've written our Birth Plan and made some decisions about medications and what kind of labor and delivery we prefer. Next week we will start a class called "New Parent, New Baby" during which we'll learn about the milestones in the first three months, as well as what to expect when we bring baby home. We're looking forward to this class because we've spent so much time thinking about the labor and delivery and not enough time preparing for actually having a baby at home.
We have made a little more progress toward preparing for baby. Last weekend, we installed the car seats in our cars. We're hoping to get an appointment at a car seat clinic on November 13th to have our worked checked. We have learned that ~80% of car seats are installed improperly. We want to make sure we're part of the 20% that have them right. Protecting baby is a top priority.
Today was the 36 week Midwife appointment. It was an exciting appointment because it was our first opportunity to gain a little bit of insight into when our little guy might actually arrive. For those who understand the lingo, as of today I am 1 centimeter (cm) dilated, 20% effaced, and the baby is at a -2 station. At this point in time, the baby's station and effacement are the most important indicators when our little guy may arrive. A woman can dilate from 0-10 cm in hours or could be 4 or 5 cm for weeks. Baby's head is down and he has dropped. This is all good news.
When will the baby come? Who knows. The midwife said he may come as soon as a couple of weeks. But in the next breath she said, she's seen babies hang out at a -2 station for a month. So we'll just keep playing the waiting game and look forward to the exciting day when it finally arrives.
