40 weeks

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

(That's the sound of me screaming.)

I am 40 weeks pregnant, and I really can't believe it. What does that mean? Today is my due date!



(I had to save my ticker from the Bump to mark the occasion. As you can see, I never updated the name.)

Let me tell you something. Due dates don't mean anything. I had my fourth internal yesterday, and I have made no progress whatsoever. No dilation, no effacement. Those real contractions I thought I was having? Yeah, they weren't real. They were Braxton-Hicks.

Despite that, I do think that I have dropped some, but probably not all the way. I can walk farther and catch my breath easier. I'm also waddling more than I was. And I can just feel that he's lower.

But all this adds up to is that I have to see the doctor again on Tuesday, and we are going to have the Big Induction Talk. My OB doesn't want to let me go much further than 41 weeks, which means that right now induction is looking like more and more of a reality. I think I would feel more at peace with being induced if I had made some progress, because as it stands right now, I am a great candidate for an induction turned C-section. I am not one of those people who has to deliver vaginally, but I would prefer it. And I'm not over being pregnant. I could do this for a couple more weeks if that's what it takes. I just worry about letting him stay in too long. And then I worry about trying to induce.

But I'm trying not to think too much about this. It is what it is, and all I can do is stay active and hope that some of the activity helps with moving things along. A lot can happen in a short amount of time, and I still could go into labor at any moment. Also, we found out that Charlie weighs about seven and a half pounds right now, so he's right on target. (And so am I, with a total weight gain of 29 pounds.)



My mom is flying in today! This is exciting. It means that she will be present for Charlie's birth (no, she will not be in the delivery room), and we might even get to have some mother-daughter time beforehand. I can't wait to see her.

I forgot to mention this, but I won an awesome giveaway last week from Mummy's Product Reviews. I won quite a few eco-friendly baby products created/sold by some of the posters on the Eco-Friendly Family board. All in all, I won eight different items, and I have already started receiving some of them in the mail. So far my favorite is this adorable pair of handmade baby shoes:



You can find them here if you're interested. There are a whole bunch of cute fabrics to choose from.

Anyway, I promised last week that I would share some pictures of Charlie's room. First off, I'd like to say that I love themes. But I decided not to do a theme for Charlie's room for practical reasons: 1) he's not going to care what his room looks like, and 2) we have no idea how long we'll be living in our current house. If we were homeowners, I would have probably gone a little nuts with the nursery. But we aren't, so we stayed basic. (Two of the themes I thought about were sock monkeys and aquarium/fish/ocean stuff.)

My original idea for the color scheme in Charlie's room was baby blue and chocolate brown - however, somewhere along the way we ended up with basic baby blue. The only brown to be found in the room is the carpet (which is probably considered more beige than anything) and the picture frames. I am now glad that we didn't incorporate a lot of brown because Charlie's room is pretty small, so the light colors and furniture helps with making it feel less cramped. That said, it is kind of cramped, but I love it and I think it's going to work just fine.

As promised, here is the evolution of Charlie's room.

Here's the wallpaper that was originally on the walls:



Beginning to gather baby stuff:



In the process of taking off the wallpaper:



Picking the paint color:



Beginning to paint:





Here's what it looked like after our shower:



Here's Roy painting Charlie's little bookcase:



And now, for the mostly finished product.

View from the doorway. You can see our awesome glider and ottoman that we got at Babies R Us. This was our one nursery splurge, and we only went for it because it was on sale. We're hoping it will last us a lot of years.



Bookcase:



Artwork above bookcase (small original watercolors of sea horses from the Aquarium of the Pacific):



Chest of drawers with light up aquarium on top (both of which were gifts from one of Roy's co-workers). The white boards above the chest of drawers are where we are going to make a collage of some of our maternity photos. I do think that Charlie, if he was older and saw the pictures hanging up in his room, would probably say, "WTF, Mom?! What makes you think I want to have pictures of your gigantic pregnant belly in my room? Not to mention you and Dad kissing! Gross!" It was either this or wall letters, which have become so freaking trendy that I decided not to do them - they are cute, though. I did want to do something like this (but with my own photos), but I didn't for some reason. Maybe for the next baby...



Changing table and little bouncy chair (also gifts from generous co-workers):



Charlie's crib:



Charlie's closet:



Charlie's friends, waiting ever so patiently to be chewed and drooled on (including the world's most patient sock monkey):







(We put Charlie's friends in his crib for now since he won't be sleeping in the crib for the first few months anyway.)

Charlie's room definitely won't be on any design blogs any time soon, but we're not design blog people anyway. I absolutely love how calm his room makes me feel, and hopefully it'll have the same effect on Charlie. I also love how there are different elements going on in one space: space (the mobile), the ocean (the aquarium and sea horse pictures), sock monkeys, etc.

Holy long post, Batman! Sorry about that. I'm trying to cram a lot of stuff in since the end is near. Perhaps there will be a (shorter) 41 week post? I guess we'll just have to wait and see!