bbupdate

We’re at 36 1/2 weeks today, and I had another ultrasound this morning, followed by an appointment with my midwife. The good news is that Tex is growing just fine – all three of the body parts they measure (femur, head, and abdomen) are right on the median for her gestational age. Her estimated weight is currently 6 pounds 3oz. Her head is down, and she’s already dropped low into my pelvis.

But… of course that’s not all. After my previous ultrasound, everything was so thoroughly on track that the obstetrician discharged me from her care… but this morning’s ultrasound showed that there’s excess amniotic fluid in my uterus. The level is high, but not dangerously high. So my midwife has referred me back to my OB, and it looks like I will probably continue to have regular appointments with her and frequent ultrasounds. From what I’ve read online, in most cases there’s no obvious cause for this condition – the most worrisome cause (e.g., fetal chromosomal abnormalities) can be ruled out by amniocentesis which we already did.

Having excess amniotic fluid does increase some risks – there’s a greater potential for Tex to go breech (because she’s got extra room to move around), and an increased chance that I will go into labor early (which, given that I’m just about at term, isn’t worrisome), or that I could suffer cord prolapse (which I should maybe find concerning, but I’m not – it just seems so unlikely). I’m seeing the obstetrician next week, so maybe I’ll freak out more then. In the meantime, I’m viewing it as yet another positive sign that the baby might come early instead of late, which would suit me just fine.

As of today, we have 5 weeks to go until the official estimated due date.

This week I saw my midwife again, who was fantastic. For my previous 2 appointments, I had seen someone else on the midwife team, whom I disliked, but I made some phone calls before this appointment and was able to get it sorted out. For the remainder of my pregnancy, I should be seeing the midwife whom I particularly like.

In contrast to midwifery in other places, the midwife who provides my pre-birth care is entirely different from the one(s) who will be present at the birth. This doesn’t bother me – Brock and our doula will be there to provide me with continuity and mental support during the birth, which actually seems more comfortable to me than relying on a midwife for that particular form of care.

I actually feel, at this point, like the whole labor/birth experience is kind of over emphasized. I’ve spent more time learning about childbirth than I will ever spend actually birthing a child. I am confident that one way or another, the baby will come out, and most likely we’ll both be fine (although I will be battered) afterward, regardless of the path we take to get there. It seems to me that what comes next (i.e., getting to know our baby and learning to be a parent) is so much more important than anything about labour and childbirth itself. Sure, I’d like as quick, easy, and painless a birth as possible, but short of teleportation, I think I’m pretty much stuck with whatever my body serves up to me.

Anyway, the midwife said everything is looking good, and that, in fact, the baby has “dropped” already (meaning that her head has descended into my pelvis). This bodes well for her arrival to be on time, although there are no guarantees, and first babies are more likely to be late. Just in case, we discussed my options for induction. Unfortunately, without medical justification I won’t have the option of chemical induction prior to 41 1/2 weeks (I know – induction sucks, but the grandmothers have bought their plane tickets, and if the baby is late, it’s that much less time we have with them in the early days), so I am hoping that Tex decides to be punctual.

I just made a snarky comment on my facebook page about al the people who have been asking me lately what the baby’s name will be, and how I think they should just read the blog if they want to find out what she’ll be named. Then I realized that although we’ve mentioned it in the blog comments, I don’t think we’ve actually announced her name in a primary blog posting. So… assuming no last minute surprises (like, that she turns out to be a boy), her name will be Eleanor Grace. It’s hard to say definitively what we’ll want to call her on a daily basis, since we haven’t even met her yet, but most likely we’ll start out calling her either Elle or Tex, and then later we’ll call her whatever she wants to be called. We’ll be giving her a hebrew name, too – we’ve got that down to a very short list of possibilities, but haven’t quite decided which one to choose. We do; have boy names chosen, as well, but I don’t expect we’ll need to use them.

We had another scan this morning, and it went swimmingly. Tex scored at or above the median on all three growth metrics (femur length, abdominal circumference, and head circumference).  Her current estimated weight (not her birth weight, but what she’s estimated to weight right now is 4lbs 9.5oz (or 2084g in new money). We’ve got another scan scheduled in 4 weeks, but at this point, it’s more because we can and less because they are worried – even if the results are poor at that point, it’s entirely safe for her to be born.

Interestingly, while I’m “showing” somewhat, I still don’t have a big round pregnancy tummy thing going, which is kind of a relief to me. Whenever people get all focused on what my tummy looks like, it makes me feel uncomfortable and objectified, like when I hit puberty and boys started staring at my chest. I’m quite happy to bundle myself up in large winter sweaters and avoid that whole thing.

Usually we only post an update when there is news about the pregnancy, but that’s not for another few weeks, and I thought it might be nice to let everyone know what’s going on.

The pregnancy is just about 7 months along now – the baby kicks (hard!) all the time, and her heartbeat is so strong that Brock can often hear it just by pressing his ear to my tummy. I’ve read that at some point in the 3rd trimester, space will get tight enough that the baby won’t be able to kick as much, and although I find the feeling of her movement to be reassuring, I wouldn’t be mind a bit less of it. We’re about half way through antenatal classes, and all the talk about how to manage the pain of labor is actually making me a bit more anxious about the birthing process – by the time I have the baby, I am likely to have spent more time practicing for it and talking about it than labor itself will actually take.

Brock had thought of using this device to listen for a tiny heartbeat, but it has proved to be unnecessary!

Brock had a birthday today – last weekend we had a party to celebrate, and spent today just taking it easy. Due to some emergency construction work in the house (bedroom ceiling about to fall in), we’ve spent the past week or so sleeping in the living room and managing the reconstruction work; sometime next week we’ll finally be able to start painting, and hopefully we’ll be back in our bedroom before the new year. It’s not a great time for the ceiling to have fallen in, but better now than February.

This has been such a tumultuous year for us, and we are so grateful for all the support our friends and family have provided during the last 12 months.

Happy holidays from us both and, of course, on behalf of Tex.

As mentioned in my post about our 20 week scan, we were scheduled for a followup scan at 24 weeks, to monitor my uterine arterial blood flow. We had this scan on Friday, and saw the OB today to find out what the results meant. The bad news is that the symptom they’d seen at the previous scan (called “uterine arterial notching”) has gotten worse – this increases my risk for pre-eclampsia, and it puts the baby at an increased risk of slow growth in the womb. The good news is that as of Friday, the baby is absolutely on-target for growth, and I am showing absolutely no other signs of pre-eclampsia (my blood pressure is actually a bit on the low side lately, there’s been no protein in my urine, and I haven’t experienced any edema). My OB has scheduled additional scans over the next 12 weeks (a scan every 4 weeks) to monitor the baby’s growth; as long as she keeps growing, everything is fine. If her growth slows, they will likely increase the frequency of scans to monitor her. If her growth stalls before she reaches full term, they will have to induce labor and deliver her early. But that’s the worst case scenario, and we’re a long way off from there. The longer she stays put, the better off she’ll be.

One more bit of nice news – the sonographer was able to get a good view of the appropriate part of the baby this time, and confirmed that she really is a girl.

Today we got the good news that Kayla, the doula we had interviewed, has agreed to work with us. For those of you who may not be familiar with what a doula is, a doula is a person (most often a woman) who provides non-medical support to a mother before and during labor. (There are post-natal doulas, as well, but Kayla is a birth doula). We decided to look into hiring a doula because neither of us have previous experience with childbirth, nor do we have a strong support network of family or friends with children here, and we wanted to fill that gap somehow. The NHS midwives are great, but their role is primarily medical – just like hospital nurses, birth midwives handle multiple cases simultaneously, they can go off-shift during the course of a woman’s labor, and we won’t know who our birth midwife will be until we show up at the hospital, much less having a chance to get to know him or her ahead of time. (My antenatal care is being provided by midwives, but they are a different set of people from the birth midwives). Hiring a doula allows us to choose someone who we like, and who we can get to know beforehand, who will be with us for the entire birthing process, and who is knowledgeable about labor, birth, and breastfeeding. We’re hoping that her presence will help us feel more assured during the progress of labor, that she will enable us to better navigate through the experience at the birth centre, and that by providing an additional pair of hands, she’ll allow Brock to take a break when he needs to, without leaving me alone.

We chose Kayla because she’s quite experienced, she has a flexible attitude toward medicated versus unmedicated births, as well as other forms of medical intervention, she’s got an entire page of her website devoted to how her role as a doula can help a father through childbirth, and also because we just generally think she’s cool. We were really glad to get confirmation from her today that she’s chosen to work with us.