Full Term (Week 37)

Started: 2009-03-22 15:18:49

Submitted: 2009-03-22 17:58:37

Visibility: World-readable

Kiesa's pregnancy hit 37 weeks gestational age on Thursday, 5 March. Generally, uncomplicated pregnancies are considered "full term" at 37 weeks; the baby is pretty much fully developed and is unlikely to have any serious neonatal medical problems. For us, this marked nearly five weeks of pre-term labor and a week post-bedrest, both of which seemed like major accomplishments. Before going into pre-term labor, I had identified week 37 as the deadline for being ready to head to the hospital at a moment's notice. Having survived the last five weeks, that notion seemed a bit quaint, as a reflection of a more innocent age.

Thursday

After skipping all BLUG-related events for the month of February, I made my first appearance at Hacking Society in the evening. I remained duct-taped to my phone but there seemed to be more than enough time to get home should anything change.

Saturday

To celebrate Valentine's Day (albeit three weeks late) and hitting 37 weeks, we planned an evening expedition to Boulder. (I also hoped that a detailed weekend plan would encourage Calvin to come sooner rather than later.) We ate supper at Chez Thuy, a Vietnamese restaurant with enough vegetarian dishes to make my head spin. (I'm used to having only a small number of options to choose from; having dozens at my disposal is a bit too confusing.)

After eating, we headed to Boulder's one movie theater (now located at the missing-hyphen mall) to see Watchmen. I went to the movie knowing very little about it; I hadn't read the comic or heard very much about it, and the trailer was little more than a jumbled string of atmospheric images. Overall I enjoyed the movie, but I couldn't always follow the plot. (Reading Wikipedia's summary of the comic characters cleared up a few of my character-related questions.) I thought the pacing of the movie followed the episodic pacing of the twelve-issue comic a little too closely; there were a couple of mid-movie story arcs that were resolved a little too well to be in the middle of a movie.

Visually, the movie was dark and gritty. The cinematography owed much to the art in the source. Having not read the comic I identified several shots that seemed to have come straight from the comic -- especially The Comedian being thrown from his window. (One review I read suggested the director used the comic not so much as inspiration but as storyboards.)

My after-action tweet summed up my immediate reaction to the movie:

Watchmen: sprawling, violent, wild.

To which I would add: Flawed and amazing.

Sunday

In the morning, Kiesa and I dropped by Longmont's Old Fashioned Bavarian Bakery for pastries. (The only hours we could find on the Internet proved incorrect; when we arrived, the bakery was open from 07:00 to 15:00 on Sunday.) After taking our pastries home for breakfast, we headed to the La-Z-Boy in Westminster. Kiesa's parents offered to get her a rocking recliner. When we entered the store, a group of salespeople looked up and gazed hungrily at the possibility of sales. We looked around the floor and ultimately picked an off-white rocking recliner. I figured out we could rearrange the go bags in the trunk to get the recliner in the car, so we took it home and set it up in our room.

With the day's shopping out of the way, I headed out on my miniature weekend expedition: A bike ride from home to Carter Lake, just across the Larimer County line north-west of Longmont. (Among other things, I judged a bike expedition on the plains to provide better cell coverage than any mountain-based hiking expedition.)

I set out from home and hit a serious headwind when I turned west on Colorado highway 66. I made it several miles to my next turn but even a cross-wind was beating me down. My route took me back to the east; with the wind at my back, I barely had to peddle for a mile to move as fast as I wanted. My GPS receiver told me I was going 35 km/hr when I felt no wind at all. I made it another half a mile, heading north with a cross-wind, before I gave up and scrubbed the expedition. I had a great tail wind heading east on Colorado highway 66.

The rest of the week

We met Kiesa's OB doctor's partner on our weekly visit on Monday morning; Kiesa seemed to have dilated to 5 cm without noticing it during the past week, but the doctor didn't indicate concern. We talked about scheduling an induction at 40 weeks (one week later than the 39 weeks the doctor tried to talk us into last week), which Kiesa and I thought was a little early but there also seemed to be some reasons (medical and otherwise) why we wouldn't want to let the pregnancy drag on too long.

The rest of week 37 proved fairly uneventful. Every morning, I tweeted a quick announcement that nothing had changed. I remained vigilant next to my phone, checking frequently with the hope that Kiesa was going into labor and we could finally get over with the waiting.