Week 38: Waiting By The Phone

These weekly updates were a lot more fun when I had interesting things to report haha! This week, my phone chimed with my pregnancy apps alerting me I had reached 38 weeks…along with the blessed “ping” of an incoming text that my beloved had finally arrived home in Turkey.

I have about zero to report on changes regarding pregnancy for this week. Almost my entire week consisted of waiting for texts, or emails, or a phone call from Will letting me know he had made it to his next destination and was safe. And praying. Lots of praying about all of that.

So now that he is home, and the dogs have their Dad back, I can resume breathing. In just three short days he will be on his way here and the real party can begin 🙂

I have my next doctor’s appointment on Monday so I will have more to report back then, but for now I’m just sitting and waiting, and trying to mentally prepare myself for labor. There are some days I wake up groggy and think, man, I’m glad today isn’t the day – I DO NOT have my game face on right now. And then there are days I feel strong and ready. I just hope munchkin senses that and decides to come on one of those days I’m feeling tough. Wishful thinking I know 🙂

For those wondering, I don’t really think we’ve got any solid signs of impending labor. It doesn’t really look or feel like baby has dropped, I haven’t really experienced Braxton Hick’s contractions at all, mucus plug is still intact, and although I am slightly dilated it’s not more than 2cm and I understand you can stay like that for weeks (or even months). So baby is doing it’s job of staying cozy till Dad gets here. It’s look like we may have our work cut out for us when he does letting this little one know that the time has come to face the world.

While one stressor of the storknesting program is hoping that your husband makes it to Germany in time for your baby to arrive, on the backend, Dad’s are only given 19 days total in Germany. 5 days before the due date, and 14 days after. So if your baby decides to make a late arrival, you may run into another time crunch of trying to get the baby to come before Dad has to leave again. Babies aren’t allowed to fly until 10 days after they are born, and you have to wait until you receive their passports and social security cards before you can return to Turkey. Dad’s can take leave and stay longer if their job permits it, but in some cases, a late birthday means mom and baby have to travel back on the rotator alone. Doable, but a much preferred task to share with your significant other.

So here we are! Only two weeks to go!