...Or maybe the better thing to say is: "Did the baby drop?"  I've been getting more and more observations from people who think Baby Horne is dropping.  I find it pretty hard to tell myself, though I have noticed my lap seems distinctly smaller these days when I sit down.  It's a very weird feeling to have your belly rest on your thighs, and not a very welcome feeling at that.  So does that mean Baby has dropped?  I don't know.  Maybe I'll ask Dave to take a picture of me and you can judge for yourself.

In other news, I've now hit 38 weeks.  It also feels weird to be only 2 weeks or so out from becoming a Mommy.  People are starting to marvel at work that I'm still around (Preggos who work at the hospital always seem to deliver sooner than 40 weeks) - Lord knows what they will say when/if I hit 40+ weeks.  But overall I'm feeling good, so I may as well be working.  Dave and I pretty much have everything in order, so the baby really could come any day now and we'd be good to go. Of course, I also think another weekend spent organizing and nesting would be great with me too! 

I had my 38-week checkup at the doctor's today, with Dr. Ray.  This one was an annoying one, as I found I didn't relish waiting around an hour for a 5 minute appointment.  Call me cranky.  The nurse didn't make me happy either, as in the beginning of the appointment she looked at me and said (very assumptively, if you ask me) "So you've been having lots of strong contractions then?"  Uh, no.  None actually.  Which earned me a look of pity when I told her that.  Huh!  HONestly!  As if every pregant woman is just itching for her baby to pop out at this point.  I figured Baby H. will come out when he or she is good and ready, so who knew it was weird not to be contracting already?  The doctor was slightly more reassuring that I'm still within the range of normal, so that's good I guess.  They gave me the option to have Dr. Ray check and see if I was dilated or anything, but seeing as how no contractions likely means no movement in that department, I didn't feel the need to drop trou for anyone today.  Maybe next time.

All the stats are good though, and that's the most important thing.  My blood pressure and pulse are still great, and Baby Horne's heartrate was 131 today.  I'm still measuring right on, and Dr. Ray was able to feel the baby's head really low in my pelvis, right where it should be.  So at this point time is just ticking away.  I don't have my next appointment until next Thursday, which is June 5 - only 3 days away from D-Day.  Which, strangely, is only one day away from the actual historical D-Day, the Invasion of Normandy, but I digress.  My brain is quite far gone at this point, I fear, as I find the stat I just quoted vastly interesting right about now!  In any case, I also had to make a doctor's appointment for June 9, the day after my due date - "just in case".  Let's all cross our fingers and hope that I don't make it to my "just in case" date.  40 weeks is great.  40+ weeks, maybe not so much.

Okay, it's time for the full update on the birthday party/baby shower that I had the other weekend.  I must say, I couldn't have picked a better way to ring in the big 3-0 than the one I had, surrounded by Dave, Baby H. on board, and a ton of friends.  Many kudos and thanks again to my friend Kristen, and her fearless partner in crime Quinn, for planning and hosting a fabulous party.  I will post pictures so you can see for yourself.

It was a really good time, if I do say so myself.  The guys were all invited too, and they actually got into all the baby shower games...arguably more so than the girls even did.

I think it may have had something to do with the prizes Kristen picked out: a rocket launcher, water balloons, and a potato gun -- all very competition-worthy.  That, and the vats of sangria Kristen had on hand to loosen up the mood.  We played "Pick-the-baby-pins-out-of-the-rice" game first - in which the pin-picker gets blindfolded and gets a minute to find as many pins as he/she can (which is actually much harder than it sounds).  Dave excelled at this game, and won it by a long shot.  Proud though I was of him, he was disappointed that I didn't let him pick out a prize.  I reasoned that we didn't need anything more since we were going home that day with all kinds of baby gifts.  He agreed, but was saddened as he really wanted the rocket launcher.  **sigh**  Maybe for Father's Day. 

Then we opened gifts - at which point all the guys disappeared - I guess that part was a little too "girly" after all.  As ever, everyone was above-and-beyond generous and Baby Horne is now even more set with everything a baby's heart could desire, and then some.  My friends are wonderful.

The guys resurfaced when it was time for the Baby-Bottle-Beer chugging contest, our second shower game.  This game was darn hysterical, and also strangely competetive!  Everyone (except me!) got a baby bottle, complete with the nipple, filled with 3 oz. of beer, and had to "chug" it as fast as they could.  Turns out the guys were faster suckers than the girls, though my friend Amy did make it into the finals with the guys.  Dave was a finalist in this one as well, though sadly did not win.  I really think he missed his calling - he should be making rounds on the baby shower circuit! 

The one game that was (happily!) girls-only was "Pin the Gender on the Baby".  I had to pick a spot on my belly, and the girls each grabbed a cartoon picture of boy or girl parts and, after spinning around a few times blindfolded, attempted to "pin" the gender on the baby bump.  One of them, Jackie, actually got it right on!  I think she picked boy parts - I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

To top off the party, everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and we had a great big cake - with buttercream icing- to celebrate both Baby and birthday.  What  a great day! 

Who knew?  Baby H. has a bony butt.  Here's the scoop:

I went to my 37-week doctor's appointment on Monday.  First: Hooray!  Baby made it to full term.  Technically Baby can come at any minute now and the doctors will be happy to oblige with delivering it.  But I digress. 

My appointment went well, though with a few unexpected twists.  I saw Dr. Mistie, who was much more personable this time around.  Stats were good: Baby's heartrate was 140, and I measured right at 37 weeks.  My blood pressure and heartrate also continue to be good, very normal, which makes me happy.  She's guesstimating that Baby is about 7 pounds and will be between 7.5 and 8 when born. 

Everyone has noticed my gigantic puffy feet - I affectionately call them little tugboats at this point since they look like they're just dragging me around.  Dr. Mistie assured me again that this is to be expected, and can only get worse from here.  I've decided to blame the 100+ degree heat for the most part.  I've also had some pretty painful Braxton-Hicks contractions every once in a while, which weren't fun, and kind of scary.  'Course, I guess it also could've just been really bad gas......was that too much information?  Well, it's all par for the course at this point.  Assuming it was the Braxton-Hicks, Dr. Mistie also assured me that they too, and any other contractions, will only get worse from here. Happy day.  She also told me to look out whenever I pass the mucous plug, as "It looks like you blew a big bloody snot in your underwear."  Seriously, that's a direct quote.  I did find out however that there's no need to call the doctor when the momentous event does indeed happen.  I just need to go straight to the hospital when my contractions are regular and less than 5 minutes apart.  Duly noted.

But the most momentous part of the visit was my impromptu ultrasound.  As the good doctor was poking around at my belly, she started muttering to herself: "Is that the head?...or is that the head?...hmm."  Turns out she was concerned enough that the bony protrusion up near my ribs might in fact be Baby H.'s head that she wanted to do an ultrasound just to be sure.  I knew that the baby had been head down at the two fun ultrasounds we did, but Lord knows I'm no expert so I went along with yet another one.  Turns out Baby's head is indeed down, and actually faced in the right direction so he/she should come out facing the most optimal way, and Dr. Mistie assured me this is how Baby is likely to settle in until D-Day.  Which is fantastic, because she'd started talking about my options if Baby was breech, namely going to the hospital this week to do an aversion, or scheduling a C-section, neither of which is a fun option.  An aversion you see, is when the doctors try to physically turn the baby from the outside, which understandably makes for a not-happy baby, and if things went awry, I'd have to be prepared to have a C-section on the spot.  Um, yikes. 

But, all is well with Baby Horne's positioning, and the end verdict is that Baby H. just has a really hard butt.  Which prompted Dr. Mistie to say that if in fact Baby is a girl, baby'll be really happy in the end because no girl likes to have a soft butt.  This news, however, prompted Dave to postulate that we are indeed having a boy, as his nickname in high school was "Steel Ass", thanks to his wrestling prowess.  The doctor did actually accidentally scan over the milion-dollar-question area during the ultrasound, which prompted an "Oops!", but luckily she went so fast and I had no idea what I was looking at so we're all still in the dark.  Phew!  What a day, what a day.

I do have to say that I've enjoyed watching Baby's butt wiggle back and forth in my belly since then. Now that I know what I'm looking at, it's really pretty cute!

Happy Birthday to me!  It's a big one today...30.   Today was the first birthday in a long time when I actually woke up early from sheer excitement.  Reason being, my friend Kristen threw me a combination birthday party/baby shower.  It was fabulous -- really just a wonderful, special day, with lots and lots of friend-time before baby makes his/her appearance.  I am too tired to write more about it now, but will write the full story later.  Suffice it to say this was a very memorable and very very happy birthday to me!

(Okay, darn Eastern Standard Time...I really did write this on my real birthday, the 17th... just really late in the day)