36 weeks... commence count-down

I'm 36 weeks today... holy crap. By next Tuesday my baby will be considered Full Term, meaning if I give birth a week from now she's not premature. So... Anytime in the next 1-4 weeks would be an acceptable time to have this baby. I'm not saying I hope she comes early, because I know the longer she has to "bake" in there, the better off she will probably be. However, should she decide to arrive a bit early (which she might, considering she is MY child) I won't be sad about it.

The only reason I feel very strongly that she should at least wait another 2 weeks is because her Daddy really can't take off work until then, and I am NOT finished with her nursery. But I have made progress... here's a photo of the progress:

As you can see, she now has a dresser (way nicer than I expected for what we paid), wall decals, all of her little NB and 0-3 month sized clothes are packed away as are her blankets, burping cloths, etc.. That "sheepskin" rug on the floor is from IKEA, I got it for $10 since I went with the fake one. I didn't think our baby needed to have a real sheepskin rug yet.. she'll probably vomit or worse on it and I don't want to be upset if I have to throw it away.

If you look closely, you can also see that we have her baby monitor, something I have yet to take out of the box and assemble, but I figure we won't need it at first any way since she's going to be sleeping in our room the first few months.

Yesterday I started a contest with my family to guess when the baby will arrive. Winner gets first phone call. Friends were also invited to guess but won't get first phone call, since I feel that should be reserved for family members. So far, the guesses are for the following:

(Earliest to latest)

Dec 17th at 6:00 pm (April)
Dec 19th (Hana, my cousin)
Dec 21 (Kimberly, my cousin)
Dec 21 at 12:21 am (me)
Dec 24th at 6:00 pm (Aunt Sherry)
Dec 25 (Meredith)
Dec 26 (Ali)
Dec 27 at 6:15 pm (Susan - Mom-in-Law)
Dec 28 (Jerry)
Dec 28 at 3:45 pm (Elizabeth)
Dec 28 at 3:50 pm (Aunt Didi)
Dec 29 at 2:45 pm (my Mom)
Dec 29 at 9:34 pm (Jonathan)
Jan 1 at 12:01 am (Meghan)
Jan 1 at 8:55 pm (my Step-Dad)

I'm still waiting on several family members' predictions but I'm pretty sure that these dates are nice and wide-spread enough that someone will win. As for my prediction, I originally believed she would probably be born around Jan 7th, but since I have been having more frequent Braxton Hicks contractions, and I just cannot imagine my belly being able to house this kid for 5 more weeks, I choose to believe she will probably come sooner than later.

I just hope she will wait until after I finish the nursery.. which is something I plan to go all out on this week and next. I've been stalking Craigslist and Pinterest looking for the perfect book case and toy chest and changing table... so hopefully my next post will be a finished nursery.