Full Term - Assorted Pregnancy Thoughts

Goodness, how time does fly. Forgive me if this is a rather stream-of-consciousness type post.

This week marks 37 weeks. Which means we are officially full term.

She is now allowed to come whenever she wants. Which means maybe I should look into what I need to pack to go to the hospital...maybe.

Personally I think she "dropped" last week - though she still looks fairly high, there has been a lot less rib-kicking and she looks smaller from my perspective. Now that appointments are weekly, and because my practice has lots of doctors, I get different little tidbits of info each time.
It is amazing to me the difference between a doctor with lots of experience, and one with less. At my 35 week appointment, the (experienced) doctor, with one touch to my stomach found Papillon's head, which was down, right where it was supposed to be. My 36 week appointment doctor (who is rather young) poked and prodded my stomach until I was very close to telling him to stop cause it hurt - and he couldn't figure out which way she was facing, and if he had to guess he would have said she was breech. A quick ultrasound proved him wrong - she was still head down like she was supposed to be. This week, again with someone experienced, it took a couple gentle touches and we identified her head, bum, and feet.

Her feet are my favorite; they are all the way on my left side, and they are all kinds of active. So much fun.

Even though she looks smaller (trust me, she does) I definitely can't see my feet, or the horrendous stretch marks on the underside of my stomach. Both of which are fine with me, cause the stretch marks are ugly, and my feet, as of late, have taken to swelling up very unattractively. I thought that I might get self conscious about my pregnant self when I hit the weight I was back in highschool that I hated; but we are significantly beyond that, and I am still not bothered by my weight gain. But after just a few days of swollen feet, I am ridiculously self conscious and ready to be done with swollen feet.

Other than that, Papillon and I are still quite happy with the way things are. While I would rather she not come super late, there is no rush for her to come early. I am getting lots of comments from strangers about looking like I am "ready to pop", which I find fabulously amusing. And its kind of fun to go to the doctors office and be one of the most "senior" pregnant folks there.

In light of the recent swelling, we were concerned that I might be having blood pressure issues, but as of today, my blood pressure "couldn't be better if we tried" according to my doctor. So other than puffy feet, all is well for Papillon and myself.