32 Week Update

Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve posted! The baby is due in less than 2 months (Oct 19). I am 32 weeks’ pregnant as of today.  At this age, he weighs nearly 4 pounds.  His crown-to-rump length is approximately 11.7 inches and the total length is about 18.9 inches.

I’m doing OK. I get really exhausted in the afternoons and I often have to come home from work at 4ish, take a nap, and work in the evening. No one told me that the third trimester would be so tiring!  went to the doctor and they tested my iron and my thyroid and they are fine. I’m just having to accept the reality of being exhausted. I’m still sleeping fine, though. I hear that as you get closer, it’s harder and harder to get comfortable (and therefore to sleep).  Although it’s nice that I haven’t had morning sickness for a long time, now I get to contend with heartburn.  Apparently, the uterus pushes up all of your internal organs and heartburn is a lovely side effect.

EB has been having foot problems. Anyone who has ever seen his feet can tell you they look pretty screwed up. He’s been having a lot of pain in his left foot and went to a podiatrist. Although the podiatrist came up with a way to pad his foot to reduce the pain, and told him how to modify some arch supports to do this, it’s not as easy as it seemed.  EB says he wore hand-me-down shoes growing up. I’m thinking that one area where I don’t want to skimp is on the baby’s first walking shoes (or any of his shoes!). We don’t know how much of EB’s condition is hereditary and how much was from not having good shoes.

I am hoping that we can start a birthing class on Friday. There’s a chance I waited too long to sign up.  Work has been very busy and I can only call to sign up during business hours. It’s been stressful keeping up with work given my energy level and the fact that my team needs more people. I’m hiring 3 new people but that of course takes time. We found someone for the first position, so that’s provided some stress relief.

I’m starting to freak out about the fact that we will soon have a newborn baby. EB tells me he already went through that. Everyone says you can’t prepare for it. Everyone says it’s so hard but so rewarding. Everyone says we’ll be sleep deprived. I can’t help but get scared.

I’m trying to figure out how much time I can take off. One of the disadvantages of working for a small company is that we don’t have any maternity benefits beyond what the state and U.S. mandate. That would be 6 weeks at 60% pay, plus another 6 weeks at $850 per week. I have some vacation time accrued so I will of course use all of that. Unfortunately, we don’t accrue sick leave. Basically, if you’re sick you stay home and you get paid, but there are no set number of days per year. In the end, it is nice to have some assets I can use if I want to stay home longer than I would otherwise be able to afford.

I need to take and post some pregnant pictures for those of you I haven’t seen! Also pictures of the crib etc. One of these days when I get a minute…