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Today marks 35 weeks (according to LMP. According to Yoda bear’s size, I’m pretty close to 37 weeks). Let’s check in to see how he’s holding up.
It’s getting cramped in here!
Congratulations! You’re now carrying over 5 pounds of baby-goodness – not counting their amniotic fluid, the umbilical cord, or the placenta itself.
Developmentally, your wee womb-tenant has the fat-factory running at full tilt while their digestive system puts the finishing touches on critical organs in preparation for their first meal (remember – before birth, all of their nutrition was blood via the umbilical cord).
With their first meal in mind, it’s time to look forward to one of the most important things you’ll do for your infant – namely, keeping them alive with nothing more than your breasts.
If you’re still unsure whether you want to breastfeed, just check out our <a=href”quote”>”Ten Reasons to Breastfeed” in Week 28.
And how’s mom doing?
Okay superwoman, it’s time to talk about labor and how you plan to cope.
Get this into your head right now — LABOR PAIN IS GOOD PAIN — it’s good for you and it’s good for your baby.
Yes, contractions hurt, but unlike the pain of injury, it hurts because your muscles are being used in a way they’ve never been used before (or only rarely).
If you’ve been living under a rock: contractions are literally the slow process of squeezing your baby – via uterine muscular waves of motion, down your uterus into the birth canal.
So – basically, your muscles are going to be like, “YO – THIS IS HARD!” when they’re talking to your nerves, who’ll be delivering these messages to your brain afterward, which you will then experience as pain.
The important part of this process is your mental and emotional acceptance of this pain as good, rather than something upsetting that must be avoided.
LABOR PAIN IS GOOD PAIN because your body is working really hard to do something that’s incredibly important.
As Captain Obvious would say, “That’s why they call it labor.”
It might not feel good, but let’s be realistic here: how many times will your uterus do this job? All Duggar jokes aside, it’s obviously a unique situation for your body.
Labor gets a bad rap because of the pain of contractions, but if you look at the big picture – beyond the pain, you’d see that your labor is an act of epic earth-shattering proportions.
Come on! It’s the act of giving life, after all!
Even if you are a pain-pansy, you need to come to terms with two things: 1) labor will hurt and that’s okay and 2) the more you accept the pain as good, the less it will hurt.
Regardless of whether you get an epidural and in spite of their popularity, every one of us would do well to remember that pain is a normal and important part of life.
Your brain’s pain system usually warns you when something is wrong or broken, but this time – if you listen to your body and take the time to understand the epic nature of what’s happening inside of you, you might begin to understand that a change of such amazing proportions is taking place inside of you that your entire body (pain signaling system included) cries out in its efforts to bear life.
One last time, just so you remember: LABOR PAIN IS GOOD PAIN.
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Well, there are a few corrections. Yoda is estimated to be 6 1/2 pounds now. Yeah, a six-and-a-half pound baby at 35 weeks. I have several weeks to go if I go full term. I still think I’m going to give birth in 2-3 weeks. If Yoda gains even half-a-pound within the next couple of weeks, he’ll be around eight pounds, exactly what both doctors are estimating.
But that bull about that labor pain being good pain? BULLSHIT. I’ve been in labor before and there wasn’t a damn good thing about it.
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What size is Yoda this week?
Yoda is the size of a coconut? A coconut? I think he might be kinda big for a coconut.
