We had a doctor’s appointment today. Andrea is doing great but her belly is now the size of someone who is 10 months pregnant. Andrea told the doctor about a sharp pain she feels on the left side of her belly when she applies pressure to a specific spot. The doctor surmised it’s painful due to ligaments attached to her uterus being stretched beyond what one would normally expect. Ouch.

The rest of the visit was a good one. The babies are still high up and the cervix is still closed. The doctor shared with us that he wants us to get to 38 1/2 weeks before we have the babies but would be thrilled if we got past 36 weeks. Right now we are at 32 1/2 weeks. That means we have six more weeks (at the most) until the babies are born. For so long I’ve been equating our weeks as months and somehow “2 months away” sounds a lot further than saying “8 weeks away.” Now that we’ve reached 4 to 6 weeks until parenthood, it makes it even more real and exciting.

The only down side right now is that Andrea has a virus and it’s making her miserable. We’re talking about her leaving work in two more weeks but I’d support her if she wanted to stop now. She’s a trooper though, so she just might stick it out. Of course, the longer she waits to take off before the babies are born, the longer she can stay with the babies before returning to work.

On that note, I found out today that the Y will let me use my sick and vacation time if I use the Paid Family Leave (which will pay me 60% of my salary) to make my paycheck “whole.” This means that I won’t have to use all of my sick time to stay home with the babies for the 7 to 8 weeks that I was hoping to. Isn’t it great we leave in a time where fathers can take time off to be with their babies I feel very fortunate.