Week 32

Here I come 8th month! Only 2 more months (61 days to go until the due date)! Peanut weighs almost four pounds and could be up to 19 inches long. Overall I'm feeling great, except I've been having bad sciatic nerve pain down my hips and legs. But it's all worth the aches and pains!

A strange thing that I've been experiencing these past few months has been VERY vivid dreams. I typically never remember my dreams (unless they're nightmares), so it's been fun to wake up and be able to give Michael the play by play of what just happened in my messed up dreamland. It must be all these hormones passing through my body. Did you know that the hormone hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) increases from 5.0 mIU/ml (non-pregnant female) to 3,640 - 117,000 mIU/ml (third trimester female)? When I found out about the massive hormonal increase it made way more sense to me why I am tired most of the time, have weird cravings, vivid dreams, and have a weird brown line running down the center of my abdomen (called linea nigra).

And we start childbirth classes next week. I'm so excited...not sure if Michael is though since I've told him that we will be watching recordings of actual births and learning about the nitty gritty of the whole birthing process. Hopefully the instructors will teach and encourage the fathers to give back and shoulder rubs in the final few weeks...and during labor!

From my point of view:

Yes, that big white blob is my stomach :)