37 weeks -- 259 days

*FULL TERM*

Ladies and gentlemen we have made it!  Today Harper is officially full term and is safe to enter the world at any time without complications.  All that means for me is the influx of sitting on pins and needles questioning every pain, feeling, and sensation wondering if it is the onset of labor.  This is it -- the waiting game beings... what I do know is that she will definitely be a November baby since it's 9pm on October 31st and, well, she's still happily curled up in my uterus.  On Wednesday I get 'checked' to see if I have dilated any and will give updates then.

***WARNING: DISGUSTING TOPIC ALERT***

I have officially read, seen, heard it all as of tonight when I was perusing the  Baby Center community boards.  I came across a thread that read, "Isn't eating your own placenta a form of cannibalism?"  Of course I had to click and read on.  What I found was astonishing.  If you have done this, NEVER TELL ME ABOUT IT.  You also should stop reading here and skip down to my weekly stats if you'd like to continue enjoying this week's update because I am about to have a bout of verbal diarrhea depicting my thought process on this topic.  Here we go!

My first reaction was, "WHhhHhHhhHaaaaAAAaatTtTTtttTTT!?!?!?!?!!?!"  People EAT their own placenta after giving birth!?  Are you freakin' kidding me!?

So I continued to read the responses and found that, yes, people actually take their placenta home from the hospital and either:

• put it in capsule form to swallow (some people even do it themselves) -- if you're dying to know how, look it up.  I am not.
• steam or fry it and eat it like a steak!

By this point my jaw is hanging down to my chest and I am squirming for a commercial to come on so that I can share the newfound knowledge with Bryan who, no doubt, would be as disgusted as I was.  I wasn't able to get very far into my findings before he "shushed" me with a gnarled face and went back to watching Terra Nova.  While he watched TV I rubbernecked my way back into the replies to see what everyone else had to say about this practice.  Still utterly repulsed, I found that there are supposedly health benefits to consuming your placenta.  Then there were debates saying that there wasn't enough proof to support that claim.  Then there were people getting offended (surprise, surprise) that people had the same shocked reaction that I had.  There were also people making jokes like they were going to make placenta parmesan for dinner tomorrow.  Bottom line folks: some women EAT THEIR OWN PLACENTA!  This woman... will not be.

She's a long as swiss chard.
Thank God she's probably cuter
Swiss chard looks like it tastes disgusting!

Time Left: 1-3 weeks

                   7-21 days

Size of Baby:  weight = 6 1/3 lbs.

                        length = 19 inches

Fruit comparison  --------------}

Harper:

Weight Gain:  starting weight = 140 lbs.
                         current weight = 171 lbs.
                         total weight gain = 31 lbs. 

My Body:

*TMI ALERT*

Now I must turn back to what seems to be my favorite topic: my boobs.

First off, thanks to all of you who have seen me in the past month and have told me that my boobs do not look as large as I describe them on here.  It really helps when your stomach is front and center.  Once the tummy jetted out past my breasticles, they really did start to look more reasonable, however when I put my bra on every morning I am reminded that they are not.  I'm still a 34 H/I and have now progressed from the 3rd set of fasteners to the final set of fasteners, which means that I will be breaking out the bra extenders sooner rather than later.  That is not what the focus of this segment is though.  The focus is the fact that I now have a clear, oily fluid coming out of my nips!  Pretty freakin' crazy if you ask me.  I am kind of glad that there is some sign of milk production because we all know what a penny pincher I am.  I have no desire to formula feed so I was really hoping that those babies would get started on the dairy production.  The realization that I am slowly turning into a human cow was a little surprising.  I'm getting ready to take a shower and notice that one breast was a little 'harder' than the other.  Also, there was some dried stuff on the nip.  Curious as I am I probed around and did my little inspection to which I will not go into serious detail (this is TMI enough right where it is.  You can use your imagination though).  I'll just say that the liquid did not just flow out on its own.  I was told at my baby shower that the liquid is "The good stuff".  What the baby needs the first few days of life; colostrum.  Chalk full of vitamins, nutrients, and such. 

The Nursery:
I went into the nursery just now ready to take some pictures when I realized that we haven't done anything in there this week.  I guess with the baby showers I felt like we worked on decorating more in there but we haven't.