The Final Month

The last month of the Baby Minion pregnancy certainly felt like the 9th month. The last couple weeks the "you're gonna pop soon" started coming and there were days where I was quite worn down after not doing much at all.
Also, the annoyances of being pregnant wore on me as well. Normally I can shrug them off, but I had a day in week 38 where I was over it. I wasn't ready to actually have the baby and leave work and have everything set up at home, I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore.
Heartburn
Knowing that heartburn goes away after birth was one of the glimmers of hope I had towards the end. The heartburn was unrelenting. I was up to 2 Pepcid A/C's a day and several TUMS. I slept sitting completely upright and nothing I could do helped. Even avoiding certain foods made no difference. Heartburn appeared every afternoon no matter what.
Soreness
My body was sore, especially in the hip joints. There was no back pain really other than if I sat for too long, my tail bone would hurt.
Swelling
My ankles were comically swollen - so much so that I could no longer wear most of my shoes. Even keeping my legs elevated at work and at home didn't seem to make a difference. My feet were basically big pillows!
My hands were swollen too. Not as noticeably as my feet, but I couldn't wear my wedding rings in the last month. The Dr did have me take a 24hr urine test to screen for preeclampsia. Thankfully I tested negative for that, but that test was quite the pain in the you know what!

Names
The baby name conversation first began back in June when we made our "long list" of any name we could even come up with. The "long list" was not very long at all and only a handful of new ones were added. By this 3rd baby, we had gone through so many names so many times - so many names we've already shot down because we've found something wrong with it. Even the names that were our runners up with the other 2 had just lost their luster even though we still did like them. 
We sat around and tried to come up with more names a couple other times but then decided it's just easier to work with the short list of names we got. We were able to settle on the boy name pretty quickly this time - sticking with the same name we would have used on a boy Baby Punkin. So that was settled in September.
We weren't ready to make the call on the girl name. We got it down to 3 names and then just let them sit for a couple weeks. After a couple weeks, though we still made no progress. Each of the 3 girl names were a different "category" to us: cutesy, common/plain and trendy. I tried to pressure - even telling Tim he just needs to pick it because Addison & Eden were names I came up with. But he couldn't decide either. I knew that if we weren't settled on a name by November, then Minion would definitely end up being a girl! So we just kept thinking about it.
I was about settled on the "common/plain" name when Tim said he was liking the "trendy" name more and more. So I thought and thought and in the end, that "trendy" name grew on me more and more too. So finally at the end of October, we settled on our girl name. It was stressful to push it so last minute like that!

Dr.'s Appointments
The entire family came along to the 35 week ultrasound as our last chance to see Minion before the big delivery date. We got to see him/her pretty well and a good shot of his/her profile. I did think I saw *something but in all honesty I really have no idea what I'm looking at unless the tech is telling me. However, this was the first ultrasound where the tech told us to turn away!
Minion measured just under 6lbs which is just under 50th percentile. 
At 36 weeks I had my first internal exam but there was no progress. At 37 weeks I was just under 1cm which of course is really nothing. But week 38 I was dilated 2cm and 60% effaced and was the same way at week 39.

Date Night
Addison and Eden had a sleepover at Grandma G's Halloween weekend so Tim and I took advantage and went on a "last night of freedom"/Anniversary date. Nothing fancy - just Panera and to see "Gone Girl". While Addison and Eden may have sleepovers again this winter, we will still have the baby with us every night for several months if not a year! 

So I think we're ready. This is the 3rd time around, so we know what we're doing. I also approached this pregnancy very patiently because I know how crazy the waiting can make me at the end. But now that the end is near, I keep thinking of all the things we do have to do and now feel all behind. Of course! So hopefully the baby doesn't come too early!