36 weeks and counting . . .

I'm sleeping better and feeling quite a bit better the last few days, so that's really nice. Still having some contractions, but they seem to be Braxton-Hicks (false labor) and nothing to worry too much about. I'm still supposed to be trying to take it easy until next Friday when I'll actually be full-term, though.

We bought a carseat for the baby, and DH moved the girls' car seats and installed all three in the van. I made an appointment with a child safety seat technician today for an inspection. He was extremely impressed with DH's job of installing the seats. The tech said that 99% of the car seats he sees are improperly installed, and he couldn't have done a better job than DH's installation himself!

DH and I are slowly working our way through getting the baby's room ready.

Our to-do list includes:


* Pack hospital bags (for ourselves and the baby)
* Get the spare diaper bag packed and into the van with extra changes of clothes for everyone, diapers, etc.
* Wash and put away baby clothes
* Buy sleepers and onesies
* Buy diapers (I have a small package but we'll need more)
* Get a waterproof mold/dust/gas barrier mattress cover for the crib (this is the new theory to help prevent SIDS)
* Set up the monitor and make sure it works
* Find the bouncy seat, Boppy Pillow, and other newborn necessities and make sure they're clean and ready to use.
* Get our room organized and ready for having the baby in there (since she'll be in our room for the first few weeks at least)
* Sidecar the crib (we decided to take one side off the crib and attach it to our bed instead of buying a "co-sleeper")
* Try to get all the girls' clothes washed, organized, sorted to pull out the too-small-ones and put away so we won't have to worry about that for a while.
* Cook and freeze several meals
* Make a phone/e-mail list of people to notify when the baby comes
* Check with our support people and make sure we have a backup to take care of the girls when the baby arrives
* Get the house organized and cleaned from top to bottom (okay, this probably won't actually happen but I'd really like it to :) )

There are other things we'll need to buy and do, but most of it can wait until after the baby comes. I'm hoping I'm not missing anything too important.

We'll actually need to buy very little, since we still have most things from when the other two girls were babies. I did loan out my 0-6 month sized baby clothes and didn't get them back, so will have to replace those. I've been buying daytime outfits throughout the pregnancy and am pretty much stocked on those I think. But we still need some onesies, socks and a few basics like that.

I'm feeling like we still have a lot to do so am not in too much of a hurry to have the baby yet, but we're getting excited!

I've been reading through old posts from the message board I was active on when my girls were born. Reminiscing has been fun. I'm printing out many of the posts to put into a 3-ring binder since I never actually kept anything like a journal or a baby book.

I may post the girls' birth stories here, but can't decide whether to do the short sterilized version or the long, detailed version. :)