36 weeks.

Hey there, baby.

We did it.

We made it to 36 weeks. You are now full-term.

That's not a huge deal to a lot of pregnant people, but it's a huge deal to me.

Your older brother Phineas was born at 35 weeks and 5 days. He spent a month in the NICU at the very beginning of the COVID shutdown. The NICU nurses were wonderful, but your dad James and I couldn't be in there with Phineas at the same time. Your grandparents couldn't hold him. Our friends couldn't meet him.

Your sister passed away before eight weeks.

Between those two events, I was pretty nervous about this pregnancy.

Your dad and I breathed a sigh of relief when we saw your heartbeat at eight weeks.

We breathed another sigh of relief when your genetic testing came back normal at 12 weeks. Between the miscarriage and my "advanced maternal age," we were so happy that everything that could go wrong didn't go wrong.

At 20 weeks, we found out you had a single-vessel umbilical cord, which could have been bad news for many things, including your heart and kidneys. At a 22-week detailed scan, we found out everything was fine. Another sigh of relief. 

Phineas was born early because I developed gestational high blood pressure. As the weeks crept on, my blood pressure stayed where it should be. Yet another sigh of relief - good blood pressure meant a premature birth was less likely.

But guess what I got instead? Gestational elevated blood sugar. This could have meant you would get too big too fast and have to be born early and/or via C-section. 

You've been a good size so far, though. However, we're not out of the C-section woods yet. At the 20 week scan, we also found out the placenta was low-lying. That means it may or may not block the cervix - if it does, I would have to have a C-section for fear of us both bleeding to death. 

All that aside - we still made it to 36 weeks. 

Because of my history of gestational hypertension, I'll be induced at 37 weeks.

See you next week, baby. Thanks for hanging in there with me.