...shadows of the world appear...
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| The Once and Future Blog ...shadows of the world appear... |
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Monday, May 23, 2005 39-week appointment today. Not a lot of progress - "a fingertip" dilated and 50% effaced. Even the doctor said that's not much. I know that it doesn't really mean anything - I could go into labor and give birth tonight, or I could have been way more dilated and stayed that way for weeks - but coupled with the fact that I barely even feel pregnant anymore, it was discouraging. I feel almost TOO good. I'm sleeping great; no heartburn; because he's so low down I don't even feel very big anymore. I helped Andy do yard work yesterday for a couple of hours, and I felt fine. We saw the baby on Saturday! I had an ultrasound to estimate fetal weight and amniotic fluid levels. They estimated the Papoose at 6 pounds, 12 ounces, with a half-pound margin of error on either side, so he's somewhere between 6 pounds 3 ounces and 7 pounds 3 ounces. That was a relief - unless something drastic happens in the next few weeks, he won't be a huge baby. Having an ultrasound this late in pregnancy is strange. Unlike the earlier ultrasounds, it was hard to get a full picture of the body, since he's now so big. On the other hand, it was easier to see specific parts in detail - for example, there's no now doubt at all that the Papoose is a boy. :) We also saw his face remarkably clearly - he had his little fists balled up near his cheeks, and he kept making little sucking motions with his mouth. Watching his little jaw move was incredibly fascinating and touching. I can't wait to meet my son. Full moon tonight...I know it's a wives' tale, but I'll take what I can get at this point. Carrie pointed out that as long as I feel so good, waiting can't be that bad, and she's right. I'm not impatient because I'm uncomfortable, I'm impatient because, well...I'm impatient. Also, I'm nervous about having to be induced - Pitocin scares me. Finally, this is going to sound sappy, but I really want that moment of knowing it's time to go to the hospital - I know it won't be the Hollywood moment so many of us imagine, but it still seems more exciting than being scheduled. posted by Tricia | 1:59 PM (0) comments Wednesday, May 18, 2005 I feel good. This is not good. 38 weeks, 3 days today, and strangely enough I feel great. Last week was tough - for some reason, last Wednesday was the worst I've felt this entire pregnancy. I was just too tired and sore and big and lumbering to even walk more than a few steps. The next morning, though, I woke up feeling fantastic, and I've been fine ever since. Sure, I feel big (hell, I AM big) and I'm noticing more cramps and pressure, but overall I have more energy than I've had in a while. The thing is - this almost sort of upsets me. The less overly pregnant I feel, the further away the birth seems. I have no idea if this is true - in fact, some people keep telling me that the increased energy is a sign of impending labor. I guess we'll see. I DID find myself reorganizing the medicine cabinets on Friday afternoon, so maybe that was the fabled "nesting." I had a false alarm on Saturday night. Andy had just gone to sleep and I was up reading when all of a sudden my stomach and my back started to hurt simultaneously and I started to get what felt like menstrual cramps, as well as a few Braxton-Hicks contractions. Nothing seemed to be connected - i.e., the B-H didn't seem to be correlated to the various parts of me that hurt - but the pain didn't go away, even when I lay down and tried to sleep. I thought about waking up Andy, then decided I would time the contractions and see if there was a pattern. There wasn't, so I got up and got a drink of water, wandered around the house awhile, used the bathroom, and waited. Nothing happened, but the pain lessened just a bit. I went back to bed and read for a while longer. Nothing changed. Finally the pain had dulled to the point where I thought I'd be able to sleep, so I turned out the light and figured that if things were going to progress, the pain would wake me up again. I woke up the next day feeling fine. *Sigh* I have no idea if I was having false labor or if it was something I ate or what. Some days I'm convinced that when labor does start, I won't know it and the baby will be born on the living room floor because I won't have time to go to the hospital. I had my 38-week appointment today. One promising thing is that when I described what happened on Saturday night, the doctor looked thoughtful and said "Hmmm," rather than dismissing it out of hand. The other good news is that I've dropped, and the baby's head is engaged! (I kind of had a feeling, based on the fact that I've been feeling movement much lower down.) TMI warning: I am also "soft," although my cervix is still too high up to say how soft. Hey, every little bit counts. The doctor had me schedule ultrasound for Saturday to check the baby's weight and my fluid levels. I can't wait to see him again! (And I hope he's not 10 pounds.) Andy is getting increasingly giddy. I am too - I'm nervous about the unknown, which I keep trying to describe to Andy. It's not that I don't know how to do things like change a diaper or get up in the middle of the night or dress a baby. It's more like being about to jump out of an airplane - you aren't so much afraid of the parachute not opening, you're more afraid of the sensation of falling, because you haven't felt it before. (I'm comparing the sensation of falling to the experience of not being a parent one minute, and being someone's mom the next - not so much to the experience of giving birth.) You know that most likely everything's going to be OK - great, even. You just don't know exactly what it's going to BE like. But just when I start to get freaked out about "Oh my God, I'm not ready, how can I be SOMEONE'S MOM?" - I think about what it's going to be like when my son is put in my arms for the first time. I imagine how it's going to feel to look at this tiny creature that Andy and I made, and how much I'm going to love him. And when I think of that, that's when I know that everything's going to be all right. posted by Tricia | 3:38 PM (0) comments Wednesday, May 04, 2005 Note to self: 36 weeks pregnant is NOT the time to rent Kramer vs. Kramer. posted by Tricia | 10:06 AM (0) comments Tuesday, May 03, 2005 I'd heard a lot about "pregnancy brain," which supposedly makes women forgetful and absentminded. Now, Andy might tell you that that wouldn't be a big change for me, but honestly, I hadn't noticed myself losing things more than usual, or forgetting things, or anything like that. Until today. When I take my lunch to work, I always pack it in one of those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags. So last night, I made my lunch, packed it in a grocery bag, and put it in the fridge. This morning, running late, I grabbed the bag from the fridge, stuck it in my work bag, and left. I got to work and opened my bag to pull out... ...a package of raw flank steak that I'd wrapped in a grocery bag to keep it from leaking. So much for lunch. posted by Tricia | 9:35 AM (0) comments Monday, May 02, 2005 36-week-appointment update: * After only gaining 1 pound between 32 and 34 weeks, I guess I got cocky. I gained 4 pounds between 34 and 36 weeks. Damn ice cream. * Had a Group B Strep swab but no internal exam yet, for which I was grateful. * The Papoose has not dropped yet - the doctor said the pressure when I walk and the twingey pelvic pains I've been having are likely the result of posture changes due to the extra weight in front and the baby's head pressing on my cervix, respectively. I asked the doctor about his policy for induction. I don't want to be 42 weeks pregnant, but after everything I've read about induction, it sounds scary. Your contactions are more intense and painful and induction puts you at a higher risk for C-section. Obviously if there's an emergency I would do it, but I don't want be induced just because I'm a week overdue. The doctor was great; he commended me for "using my head" - I guess there are a lot of women who beg to be induced when they're barely past their due dates. What he told me was that if I go to 41 weeks, they'll offer induction as an option; if I choose it, they'll schedule it between 41 and 42 weeks and hope that I go on my own in the meantime. He did say, though, that they can't let me go past 42 weeks - if I went that long, they would have to induce me, but he said it wasn't very likely I would go as long as that. I start weekly appointments now, it's hard to believe. posted by Tricia | 8:21 PM (0) comments I really need to update more than once a month. Yesterday I hit the 36-week mark, though! I should be happy to think I've only got 4 weeks until my due date, but I have a feeling it's going to be longer than that. I knew that first-time mothers tended to go late, but I didn't know it had actually been studied until I read this, which states that for Caucasian women in private medical care expecting their first child, the average length of pregnancy is 41 weeks 1 day. Using that measurement puts my "real" due date at June 6, rather than May 29. The baby is considered full term at 37 weeks, but he's not considered post-term until 42 weeks. So realistically, I could be in for another 6 weeks of this. *sigh* I am starting to get uncomfortable. I'm still sleeping pretty well at night, thankfully, but it's taking longer to get comfortable when I first go to bed. Also, I think the Papoose may have dropped a bit, as I'm noticing more pelvic/bladder pressure when I walk. And if I thought I was using the bathroom a lot before... Right now everything is ready for the baby's arrival. My friends here in Boston threw me a baby shower at 33 weeks, and my family threw me another at 34 weeks, plus Andy's family organized a "shower by mail" that had packages arriving on our doorstep for days. It's wonderful how nice everyone has been - we have everything the Papoose could possibly need or want. I think he has more clothes than I do, and he certainly has more designer labels (there were a few Hilfiger onesies in the bunch). The clothes are sorted and washed, the nursery is complete, the swing and bouncy seat are assembled, our childbirth classes are done. All we need to do is install the carseat, and we'll be all set. I have my 36-week appointment tonight; I'll be tested for Group B Strep, and I think I may have an exam to see if I've made any progress. That should be interesting. After this I also move to once-a-week appointments - it's getting close! posted by Tricia | 3:16 PM (0) comments Tuesday, April 05, 2005 Had my 32-week appointment yesterday. Shockingly, I only gained 4.5 lbs in the last 4 weeks. Between the outgrowing of the pants and the swelling of the face, I was worried that I'd put on a lot more than that. So I'm up 23 lbs total - not bad. The doctor felt my belly and determined that the Papoose is not sideways after all - he's head down. I have no idea how he could tell, because I sure can't, but apparently his head is downward and slightly to the left, his back is just to the left of my belly button (I've been feeling a lot of "pushing" type movement right in that spot, which the doctor said could be him arching his back), and his butt is just above and to the right of my belly button. I felt more hiccups this morning, and they were about where his head is supposed to be, so I felt better. Of course, he could still move - the doctor says he's "like a yogi in there," able to change position anytime at this point. Let's hope he stays more or less where he is. We also had the first of our two Prepared Childbirth classes on Sunday. It lasted from 9 am - 1:30 pm, but it went by pretty quickly. At first I was surprised to see how much of the information I already knew, especially compared to some of our classmates. But later on, the instructor walked us through the stages of an uncomplicated labor to give us an idea of what happens when, when to call the doctor, when to go to the hospital, what would happen once we got there, etc., and I found that very helpful. We also practiced some breathing exercises, but Andy kept making me laugh during them. He was sitting behind me with his hands on my back, feeling me breathe from the abdomen, and the instructor told the women to visualize ourselves in the most relaxing place we could think of. Just as I inhaled, Andy intoned in my ear, "You're in the liiiiiiiiiibraryyyy..." and I choked on the breath I was taking. (He had a point, though.) Finally we watched a video of a woman and her husband going through an unmedicated birth. I think I've been in denial this whole time. When I was younger I used to look ahead to being pregnant someday and worry about the pain, but since I've actually BEEN pregnant, I've hardly thought about it at all. Until now. This woman didn't seem like she was in horrible pain, actually, but something about watching it bothered me so much. It was so graphic and uncomfortable looking and...and...I don't know. Let me just say I cried during it, and not because I was moved. Epidural for me, please. posted by Tricia | 12:11 PM (0) comments Friday, April 01, 2005 Luckily, Sunday night's crappy sleep was not the herald of things to come. Sleeping on my side is once again manageable - yay! I think the little guy is lying sideways. For a while now, I've seemed to feel most of the movement far to each side, often on both sides at once. He gets particularly squirmy when I lie on one side. The other night I was lying on my left side, and he started pogoing - I felt like he was going to pop out of my left side, while at the same time Andy could see the blankets moving on my RIGHT side. Then the next morning when I woke up, he had the hiccups. I could feel them on the left side instead of at the bottom, where I think they would be if he were head down. So I'm not sure, but I'm starting to think that his head is at my left side and his feet are at my right. This is called being transverse breech, and at almost 32 weeks it's apparently nothing to worry about yet. He still has time to flip over - from what I've read, the doctors don't start worrying about position until around 36 weeks or so. If he's still in the wrong place at that point, they might try to turn him via an external version; if that doesn't work, I'd have a C section. Strangely, this prospect doesn't really worry me. If I have to, I have to - thousands of women have done it before me, and the object is a healthy baby. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was carrying this baby in my face, which has swelled up to about twice its normal size in the last few weeks. Also, today I put on my demi-panel khakis and had to take them off again. I've been making a gradual move from demi-panel to over-belly pants, and I think these were the last holdouts. I'm wearing a dress today and while it's so comfortable, all I can hear is my brother's voice asking "So, are you wearing a muumuu yet?" posted by Tricia | 11:07 AM (0) comments | |
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