I had my 36 week doctor’s appt this afternoon and have this to report back:

Urine: Normal: no protein, no sugar (yea!)
Weight: gained 3 lb since last appt (back to 6 lbs total gain!)
Blood Pressure: Nice and low
Baby’s Heartbeat: Normal, in the 150s
Measuring: right on schedule for 36 weeks
BPP (Biophysical Profile): 8 out of 8

We also had an ultrasound to check on the baby’s growth (just a gestational diabetes precaution). It was wonderful to get to see her again! Just watching her squirm and wiggle, while I can feel it at the same time, blows my mind. Plus she had the hiccups again, which was just lovely on my very full ultrasound-ready bladder. Here is her profile picture, in which I am sure she was mid-hiccup.

Since room is a little tight (that is putting it mildly) inside my belly, ultrasounds done this late in the pregnancy aren’t as accurate as the earlier ones. Mostly they just wanted to check things out and see how we were progressing. According to the ultrasound, my due date should be on or around December 3rd (they said not to trust this, but to go with our conceptual due date of December 19th–but I still thought it was interesting enough to share) and the baby is currently weighting in at about 7 lbs 8 oz…let me just let that sink in for a minute. Seven and a half pounds…at 36 weeks! Since babies tend to gain about a half pound per week in the final stretch, we are looking at one good sized baby!

While we were in there looking around, Simeon and I asked the ultrasound tech to double check the sex for us. If I have to exchange all the pink girly things we have acquired, I wanted to know before I go into labor. So she wandered down to that area and got a lovely and very reassuring view of our daughter’s private region. Whew! Still a girl!

And since we are sharing pictures, I thought I should toss in my 36 week belly shot as well:

And the close-up: