Butternut Babe

Chickie is now 35 weeks along, marking our official countdown status at around one month, one week to go! Size-wise, our little babe is only comparable to that of a butternut squash, yet apparently my uterus has grown about 1,000 times its original size ... no wonder I can barely walk! Actually, that's not entirely true. I had my 34 week check-up this past Tuesday, and the doctor told me that even though it sounds like a crazy idea, the best medicine for my aches and pains would actually be to drag my booty to the gym and get whatever mild workout I could. Since it had been a decent amount of time since I'd actually stepped foot in the gym even though it's only a hop, skip, and a jump away, Chickie and I managed to work out for 45 minutes both Wednesday and Thursday. We did the elliptical for a half hour each day, and supplemented that with a little biking and power walking. Even though I wanted to quite pretty much every second of every minute of both workouts, I must say that my limp-waddle has decreased to just a jolly-old waddle. I'm not in nearly as much pain as I have been the past two weeks, so maybe this doctor knows what she's talking about after all.

At Tuesday's check-up, all was well with the Chickster. He/She had a good heartbeat somewhere in the 120 range. When I commented that I thought Chickie might be a boy now that the heartbeat has been lower than 140 for the past month or so, the doctor gave me a look and joked about how excited she is that google is finally catching up with the latest and greatest in ultrasound technology. She assured me that none of the old wives tales out there are true, and that the only certainty is that we still have a 50% chance that Chickie is a boy, as well as an equal 50% chance that Chickie is a girl. My due date is still set for June 8th, so I guess we'll all have to wait until then to find out! It's still fun to guess though. Sometimes I am so sure we're in store for a little Mister Chickster (the heart rate is now low; I'm mostly carrying low and in front; I didn't have any morning sickness; all my friends are having girls so I must be the odd man out; etc.), and other times I think we better prepare ourselves and get cracking on that middle name, because we're totally in store for a little Missy Chickie (the heart beat was high for many months; maybe I'm really carrying everywhere and am just in complete denial; my mom didn't have morning sickness with me, yet she did with my brother; all my friends are having girls so I'm clearly a part of that club, right?!). Either way, we're going to be so excited and so surprised, because we really have no idea who is getting ready to come greet us. Guess we'll find out soon enough!