36w2d

I had my 36 week appointment, and it was thoroughly uneventful. Basically, the usual plus the GBS swab. The office doesn't do an internal unless you've experienced significant contractions or are at 39 weeks or so, which is consistent with their general non-interventionist philosophy, with which I am comfortable. I feel very fortunate that everything has gone well thus far (knock on wood -- seriously little creatures you didn't hear me say that). The fact that the only issues have been a) the near-fainting episodes, b) basic aches and pains while sleeping/trying to sleep/upon waking, and c) the pain and tingling/numbness in my hands makes it that much easier to work with a hands-off approach. If I had had complications, I suspect I'd be freaked out at this point, though they would probably be less hands-off.

As for knocking things off the list, I met with HR today. The process seems pretty simple. Prepare a vacation memo but call it a maternity leave memo and make sure there's coverage on all my cases. No paperwork or anything. Tonight we are heading to the police department to have the car seat base that P installed inspected and the other one installed, then we'll come home and hang the remaining shelves. We had our baby care class last night, which was pretty helpful. I'm glad I now know how to properly bathe an infant, how to wake a sleepy baby to feed, how to soothe a baby when nothing else seems to work, and when to call a pediatrician.

On that note, they asked at the class who didn't have a pediatrician yet, and we were one of three couples who didn't, and the others were due a month or more after us. So P and I set up appointments with a few pediatricians today to try to figure that whole thing out. One (the one my OB recommended) didn't have any availability until 9/11, which a) may be too late for a pre-baby appointment and b) makes me apprehensive about our ability to get an appointment as needed for the baby anyway. The other two (one at the practice most of the people I know use, one at the other major practice in our town that, oddly, no one I know uses) will be next week. Hopefully we'll get a particularly good feel from one or the other so we can decide. We can always switch later if we don't like them, right?

Finally, I made a little addition to the sidebar -- What Is Lou? Anyone care to place a guess? I'm curious as to what anyone else thinks.