Two things dropped on New Years

Even with a nasty cold, I stayed up to watch the ball drop on New Years, but there was a more exciting drop to come. I woke up New Years Day with a noticeably lower belly! The baby dropped with the Times Square ball. How fun is that? So she's head down, locked and loaded. All week I'd been commenting incredulously at how high she was; how it was like I had a shelf belly. And I was seriously concerned about where all of my internal organs were residing as I had literally one centimeter of space between my chest and belly. You could feel my uterus way up there--again, like a shelf. It was like I'd shoved a basketball under my shirt and pushed it up as far as possible. The old wives tale is that carrying high means you're having a boy, and I had random people asking if that was the case--my belly was that obviously up and out. The day before she dropped, it was the cashier at Target. I kept meaning to take a good picture, but kept putting it off (it didn't occur to me that it would change shape), so this is the best photo I have, taken on New Year's Eve. My mom was visiting and wanted a picture of the two of us in the snow, so this was a lucky spur of the moment belly shot that I didn't realize would be my last one with basketball belly.

When I changed clothes the next morning, I looked down and realized that my belly was like four centimeters lower and was shaped more like a ski slope or teardrop, no more basketball! I could feel the top of my uterus starting lower down, but the shape was the most striking difference. It seems to begin lower too--like an egg, lower down on my pelvis, instead of just popping out at my waistline, or what used to be my waistline. My jeans definitely don't fit anymore with that lower body shape change. I don't know if you can tell a difference in photos, but here I am on New Years Day post-drop.

Theoretically, I could go into labor 2-4 weeks after the drop. But from what I've learned, it's all just theoretical from here on out. There are always exceptions. I'm hoping though that this means she at least won't be late, since 4 weeks from New Years is my due date (it's January 30). Two weeks would be, well, pretty soon! But you never know. Of course, now I'm over-thinking every pain I get, but so far it seems hard to confuse a stomach ache from too much Indian food (last night) with the onset of contractions.