Trying to wait patiently...

Had an appointment with the nurse practitioner on Friday. She just measured my belly and listened to the baby's heartbeat. Everything seemed fine. She did say that when she listened for the heartbeat she heard what sounded like Braxton-Hicks contractions, which I thought I had been having. What happens with these is that basically your belly gets all hard for a few seconds. Sometimes all over, sometimes just the lower or upper part. It's uncomfortable, but it doesn't really hurt most of the time.

My biggest issues lately are being tired and having problems with my feet. I only have one pair of shoes that I can really stand to wear any more, my poor feet are so swollen up. They really hurt in the morning when I get out of bed; some mornings I feel like I'm not going to be able to walk on them. I also actually get welts around my ankles just from my socks! I've tried elevating my legs, but it doesn't really seem to help very much. I guess it's just one of those things you have to put up with.

My due date is only six weeks from tomorrow! I am kind of anxious about labor, but most of all I am anxious about the huge, awesome responsibility of having a tiny, helpless person completely dependent on me. I don't know how I am going to adjust to the demands on my independence. And Clint and I are already a little worried about relationship maintenance---it's going to be very hard to get any time alone together, especially without any family close by to give us a little break for couple of hours. Yikes! I've been thinking about talking to some of the other women I know who are pregnant and seeing if we can do some babysitting exchanges, so we can each occasionally get dinner and a movie out with our husbands. I think I'd rather hand the baby over to someone else who was a recent mother than to some high school babysitter...

My next OB appt is May 28th, when they'll do the last ultrasound to check the baby's position. I'm excited about the ultrasound---we haven't seen him since 28 weeks! After the 28th, I'll have an appointment every week until the baby is born.