36 week appt

Well, we have made it this far and are so excited to be at this point. Of course, I could do without the excruciating back pain. I actually called in sick today because of said back pain. I have an extremely pronounced waddle. Today, we went to Target and Home Depot (but not Bed Bath & Beyond; there just wasn't enough time) and I was tempted to hop on one of those motorized carts that they have. I refrained this time, but I think I'll do it next time just to embarrass my husband.

Today, we found out our precious boy has flipped from breech to head down. Woohoo! He is still up pretty high, so there is a very small chance that he could still flip, but odds are slim. My cervix is slammed shut right now, and I don't really feel any rumbling in the nether regions. Amniotic fluid level is normal. Things are looking good. I gained only one pound this week. Hooray!

35 weeks and counting

At yesterday's appointment, the doc did indeed confirm that Ben is still breech. In fact, his tiny little foot is squishing my bladder as I write.

I am now having weekly appointments. Next week, we will have an US to look at his size, position and level of amniotic fluid. He told us to bring a DVD, and I am so looking forward to getting another peek at our son.

I am positive for Group B strep. This means I will have antibiotics before/during my delivery. I think I am supposed to any way since I have mitral valve prolapse. Load me up, I say. I do not want any germs anywhere.

I also got a letter from insurance in the mail saying that I have been approved for delivery. At a hospital that is not the one I have requested. Grrrr.....

A picture in a signature on a message board I belong to has prompted me to begin looking into baby photo sessions. I am almost certain that I will be suckered into spending an armload of cash on these things, but I think it will be well worth it to capture the early days of what could very possibly be our only child. This one is booked through 2008, but I can get on a cancellation list. This one is pretty popular, and has a package of Baby's First Year that isn't so awful if one breaks down the costs of multiple sessions. You can also see a couple of family photos of the Houston Ast.ros mixed in. If she's good enough for pro baseball players, she's good enough for us. I simply can't help it if I have visions of perfect little birth announcements, like this one:

Large and Not Terribly In Charge (34w6d)

Am feeling rather enormous these days. I waddle painfully around at work, when I am not scooting my largesse to and fro in a rolling chair. The walk from my parking garage to my unit gets longer by the day. I find that I drop everything these days, and bending over at this point is most ungraceful. Most people are actually nice enough to pick up whatever unfortunate item it is, but if there is no one around, I am not above kicking it under a stretcher or some such. I dropped my favorite shade of Laura Mercier eye shadow while getting ready for work one day, and it shattered all over the floor. I left it there for a week and a half until the cleaning ladies came. I have no shame. (Incidentally, I also dropped my laptop in the middle of this post and had to reboot. No harm no foul, it seems, and thank goodness for that autosave feature)



Ben still feels breech at this point, and I am fairly certain that the doc will agree with me tomorrow. I feel the kicks in my lower abdomen mostly, and I think that a little hand found my rib cage the other day. It was pretty funny how I felt the hand pushing and just come to a halt all of a sudden. I know there is still time to turn, but I have heard that whatever position they are in around 36 weeks is usually what they will be in for birth. I did a bit of reading a few days ago, and it seems that 80% of breech babies are delivered via C-section. I certainly hope this kid turns. A friend of mine told me about an exercise from the 70's just short of doing a damn headstand that her doctor had her do. I tried for about 2 minutes before I gave up. A pounding heart and shortness of breath will probably do more harm than good, no? My doc told me this was bollocks, in so many words, and that they usually turn on their own anyway. If I want, I can sleep on my left side one night and my right the other. I knew I liked that man. A short while back, I was ready to sign up for a scheduled C-section. Damn if childbirth class and my girlfriend didn't help me change my mind and help me decide to give the vaginal thing a shot. Now I am back to looking down the barrel of the C-section gun. Just dandy.


BTW, I did not realize that I had such a rock star of an OB. I chose him because I really liked what my friend said about his practice, and I loved his bedside manner at our first visit when we had to deal with this. Lots of random people have asked me who my OB was, and they all had the most lovely things to say about him. An L&D nurse shrieked so loudly I thought only dogs could hear her, "OMG, I luuuuuuuuuuuurve him so much! He is the best doctor blahblahblah..." I actually bumped into one of the docs that I work with at my lasta visit. She was keeping her pregnancy on the DL until she knew all was well, and she told me that another physician she works with had recommended him by saying, "He delivered both of my kids and is the best physician I have ever worked with, hands down." One of the pediatricians I interviewed told me that within that particular ped group, 5 of the docs had kids and they were all delivered by him. This makes me feel a bit more relaxed and able to put my trust in him, which is really hard for me to do, given my profession.


I have interviewed a couple of pediatricians recently, both recommendations from friends. One works full time and has a practice with two other docs. She also has a tad more experience than the other. The other has a little less experience, and works in a job-sharing position with another doc on the office, a group of about 8. They both seem great and very personable. They both had different answers for how circumcisions are handled. One said that she will do it in the office 2 weeks after birth, with numbing cream, local and snip snip. The reason being is that if one is trying to establish breastfeeding, she'd rather not sacrifice a feeding by taking him away at the time. The other said that a neonatologist or pedi surgeon at the hospital can do it. Am not sure which approach to take. I am leaning toward choosing the full-time doc as our ped. I am wondering if there would be too much inconsistency with someone working part-time. My husband says to pick the one that is closest to the house and that gets us in and out in the shortest amount of time. This may likely be what happens. Still not sure what to do about the circumcision. Must get some off-the-books consults with friends and bloggers.

Yesterday

I work as a nurs.e in the holding area and recovery area of a can.cer hospital. Yesterday, one of my coworkers had done the prep work for a 24 year old girl who was having a hysterectomy and oopherectomy due to her ovar.ian cancer. She had received sedation for her epidural placement and needed the required post-sedation monitoring. My coworker went to lunch, so I said I would keep an eye on things for her. I hated walking around that curtain but there was no one else available to get her vital signs. When I opened the curtain, I could see that my huge stomach was right at eye level for her mother sitting in the chair next to her. She instantly averted her eyes, most likely not wanting a reminder of the things her daughter will not get to experience. I was so thankful that the patient was still asleep from her sedation.


To add to that, I had checked in a 28 year old who was to have a cervical dilatation. I had overheard her asking her physician if she thought she would recover in time to begin injections for IUI.


Yesterday was the first time that I felt any sort of guilt over this belly that A&I both worked so hard for.

Floating Away

Um, I gained 4 lbs in 1 week. I think most of it was in my ankles. While waiting to be seen, I pressed a finger into my left ankle and noted 4+ pitting edema, otherwise known as severe cankles.



Before we left town for Ike, I had an appointment that revealed a blood pressure that was a tad elevated for my norm. My doc wanted to watch me weekly because of this. I also have a blood pressure cuff at home. I think since he knows that I'll take my pressure at home and will watch it closely he is letting me come back in two weeks. Also, my urine protein was negative and the pressure is back to my norm. Plus, I am not feeling poorly, just enormous.


Ben is still feeling breech, based on the placement of his kicks. One fun thing is that I am feeling movement so much more these days. My stomach is shaking as I write! It is fabulous. This AM, I woke up on my left side turned somewhat on my stomach, and I was given some protest kicks. I turned over and he stopped. Little stinker.

Kiddie Art & Post-Hurricane

We are fine post-hurricane. Our home has very minimal damage, and our power was restored within 36 hours or so. There is a minor leak in the ceiling in our gameroom. A wasn't able to find a source for the leak, other than perhaps some rain sneaking in through the turbine. There dooesn't appear to be any loose shingles on our roof, although that is difficult to tell from a distance. There is something about sleeping in one's own bed with a giant snoogle pillow that is just divine.

My sister and her family, on the other hand, didn't fare so well. The strong winds blew the turbine off of her roof, which let in a ton of rain which led to the caving in of her bedroom ceiling. It is a hot mess. She has registered with FE.MA, so we'll see how that turns out. My parents are going on over a week without power. A & I have offered for them to both stay with us, but my parents give me the speech of "We've got water and gas, we're fine and we grew up without AC as kids anyway." But my mom did come up to do some laundry, finally. My parent's house in the country is more convenient for my sister and her family (especially with the gas situation) so she prefers to do that.

I've returned to work (and avoided preterm labor--woohoo!), and feel even more fortunate. Several people I work with have homes that are essentially unlivable, and they aren't even that close to Galves.ton! One of the managers has a tree splitting her home in half, another girl has only a living room and kitchen that she and her family can safely be in. Some are still without power, like my parents. So, things are still one big hot mess down here, although things are getting waaaaay better. There are no longer lines wrapped around the corner at the grocery stores or cars around the block waiting for gas. Debris is being cleared from the streets, and the roads are a bit safer to drive on. There is actually a curfew (9p-6a) still in effect. When we went to Chuy's last night for dinner, and a sheriff actually blocked people from coming in for dinner after 9, which I don't think I'd ever seen happen before!

My husband has been off all week since his office doesn't have power and their servers are down. He has actually made up for a bit of foolishness last week (whining about not getting to play golf on his birthday because we had a baptism class, yammering ad nauseum about Fantasy Football with one particular friend that has no job, no girlfriend, no life--please help me feel better by offering up tales of similar suffering related to Fantasy Football) by taking care of more than a few things for me.

Today I went looking for a grandparent-type gift for my parents and MIL. Nothing out there seems quite special enough, though. I tried looking for a fancy keepsake frame but couldn't find anything tasteful and non-cheesy/cutesy/crappy quality. If any of you have ideas, I am game.

I did, however, find the perfect wall art for Ben's room.

I am just getting the canvases for now. They are cute enough as is that I don't think that they need a frame. Oddly enough, they actually featured my chosen bedding on the giggle.brush website. Apparently, someone else thinks it is perfect too. I'll post a pic when I hang them.

My blood pressure was up a bit the Thursday before Ike it. It has since come back down, but my doc wants to see me weekly now here at 32 weeks. Ben still felt breech to him, but he doesn't worry about it unless they are in that position around 36 weeks. A friend of mine says there is some exercise from the 70's that involves elevating your hips on pillows and laying with your head down for about 10 minutes daily starting right about now that helps them flip around. I am not sure what kind of merit this has, but if any of you have heard of this, or know of any ways to flip a breech baby, please pass them on! I thought it was enough to simply jump the hurdle of getting pregnant.

Effin' Hurric.anes

Soooo...... we've got a category 3 hurrica.ne headed our way. While my home is not in the zones where there is a man.datory evacua.tion in place, we opted to flee the city for a less dramatic weekend. The wind is expected to reach 75-80 mph, so we are looking at lengthy power outages and other assorted wind damage. We have quite a few trees near us (in particular a giant rotting pecan tree directly behind us on neighboring property that strikes fear in my heart each time there is rain, much less a hurricane), and some rather shady people that live behind us that have a ton of junk in their backyard that could very easily fly through our windows.

Despite all of that, I was hesitant to leave. I finally succumbed to pressure from my husband, parents and friends/colleagues. We opted to leave our cat in our home with several days worth of food and water and clean litter box. Our neighbors have decided to stay put, so they will check on him once the storm passes. I actually cried this AM when I gave him his good-bye pet and kiss. I seriously fear what we've got to come back to.

On a brighter note, we had an OB appt yesterday. Our son is doing well! He weights 4 lbs 3 oz right now, and the fluid that was on his kidneys at the 22 wk US is now gone, so everything is looking pretty normal. Whew. He is breech right now, and with some pretty forceful kicks in my lower abdomen. Right now, it is still a lovely feeling. He will likely be about 8 lbs at birth, according to the peri who did our US.

We had asked our OB for a bit of advice on whether to stay or go. He doesn't seem to take a lot of stock in studies that say that a drop in barometric pressure can prompt labor. He didn't personally experience that in his practice. He chose not to leave, but recommended that if we chose to, we should wait until all the people that are manda.tory evac.uees were off the road so as to avoid sitting in traffic for hours upon end like many people did when Ri.ta came around. We left bright and early this AM and hit nary a snag. Except that now I am in S.an Anto.nio with the world's most primitive television that I can't figure out how to turn on. My husband is actually golfing at the present time. I opted to not make a fuss since it is his birthday this weekend, and all I really wanted to do was take a nap.