I don’t know about you but it seems that this pregnancy has been flying by! Right about now Holly is shooting barbed daggers at me with her eyes. That’s okay if she does. But she must remember who watches Hazey-Face and soon, the Coming Attraction 2.0 for free while she and Ben are working.
But here she is beginning her 8th month. Soon enough…sooner than we think…hopefully not sooner than when Bill gets the re-finishing of the baby’s crib completed, this baby will be ready to make her grand entrance.
At 32 weeks, the Coming Attraction 2.0 weighs approximately 3 pounds 10 ounces and is about 17 inches long, taking up a lot of space in Holly’s uterus. At this stage of the pregnancy, the average woman is gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to the baby. In fact, she’ll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. If she is anything like her sister, she will be a roly-poly baby come her birthday. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz)…ginger, strawberry blonde or brown like her father’s, only time will reveal that to us all. Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.
As her pregnancy advances, Holly’s blood volume has increased 40-50% to accommodate her and her growing baby’s needs. Her expanding uterus has shifted her center of gravity changing her posture and putting a strain on her back. Hormonal changes in pregnancy have loosened her joints and the ligaments that attach her pelvic bones to her spine. This can make a woman feel less stable and cause pain when walking, standing, sitting for long periods, rolling over in bed, getting out of a low chair or the tub, bending, or lifting things. Precisely all the things that Holly has been complaining about lately.
Well not much longer my darling daughter. Just hang in there and keep on gestating.
But our family’s adoption experience doesn’t so neatly fit into a one hour weekly television drama series. Nor does it even remotely reflect your typical adoption experience…open or closed or otherwise. Social workers involved in our case back in the day told us they had never, ever had a case like ours. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all bad. It’s all for good. After all, how fortunate we are to have Daniel in our lives? How lucky our family is to be completed by this remarkable child? I will never understand the thinking that brought his bio parents to the decision that they made. Still I am forever grateful for their choice. Anytime Daniel and I talk about the fact that he is adopted I always touch on the truth of how blessed we are that he is our son. He tells me that the reason why he had to be born 16 weeks early was so he could meet his mommy…yes, me.
