The Home Stretch

At 37 weeks, we can officially say we’re now in the home stretch! L & R (and Eddie) arrive next weekend to start the waiting game for Roo 2’s arrival. It’s crazy that we’re finally at this point. 😊 The due date is April 2^nd so it really could be any day now.

Some quick updates since my last post:

The baby finally decided to turn head down around 32 weeks. Woo hoo! So we’re no longer having to worry about a c-section.

And, I went for my follow-up 3 hour gestational diabetes test and passed! I nearly passed out afterwards due to not eating for so long and felt awful all day, but at least I’m not diabetic.

Also, around 30 weeks I started having the most excruciating back pain that I have ever experienced in my life. I stopped working out in hopes that it would go away, but to no avail. I took Tylenol, no help. I tried stretching, nothing. It didn’t matter if I was standing, sitting, or lying down, I was in pain. I eventually couldn’t even sleep for more than 2 hours at a time which lasted almost a month. It was terrible and I was exhausted! I was finally able to discuss it with a nurse practitioner during one of my check-ups and her answer was three-fold:

1. This pregnancy is your 4^th pregnancy and with each pregnancy it becomes harder on your body. (Well, duh!… but not helpful. I can’t just magically be un-pregnant.)
2. You’re getting older, and with age come back pain. (Well, duh!… but also not helpful. I can’t get any younger.)
3. You’ve been gaining a lot of weight which puts strain on your back. (Well, duh! But being in the third trimester isn’t exactly a time to lose weight.)

So, I needed a “real” solution… which came in the form of a chiropractor. I had never seen a chiropractor before, but after my very first visit I slept through the night and I was SOLD! Due to how quickly the baby grows and the body changes this late in pregnancy, I’ve been going twice a week since then to keep things aligned and comfortable. Any preggo mamas out there or fellow surrogates… go so a chiropractor! It even helped with some of the minor pregnancy discomforts that I always just chalked up to being a part of pregnancy.

Lastly, L&R and Jeff & I did our pregnancy plan with our match manager. If you would like to read about that from our first journey you can view that blog here. Since we had already done this together previously the process was pretty much a copy and paste sort of deal. But, of course there were extra things to work around thing time such as Covid concerns, new hospital rules due to the virus, etc. I’ll post a separate blog about how those things will change our delivery this go around.

We’re down to weekly appointments now, and next week we’ll have our final ultrasound to check growth. The final stretch is here. Before you know it, Mission “Make Eddie a Big Brother” will be complete!