I got my final ultrasound today to make sure the baby isn’t too small. Well, apparently the baby’s weight is currently in the 68th percentile and the baby weighs about 7 pounds, 4 ounces. Not to worry – it’s gonna be a big baby!
This means that of the 23 pounds I have gained during pregnancy, over 7 are baby. That’s 30% of my total gain!
This week has been very busy. Tuesday night Kelly and I went to the Birth Center orientation for people who know they plan to give birth at the birth center. It was poorly organized and the packet of information they gave out was missing a number of pages. Whoops. We got to tour the full birth center (last time we only got to see 1 of the 3 birth suites since a woman was using one of the others) and to tour the hospital’s maternity ward, which made me feel much better about the possibility of transfer. The labor & delivery rooms were very swank – much nicer than some hotels we have stayed in. Plus, the view over Cambridge and Boston was magnificent! We were there just as the sun was setting and the moon was rising over the skyline. Beautiful.
Yesterday I interviewed a pediatrician. Very, very nice guy. Dr. Osler at Somerville Pediatrics is very nice and supportive, although of course we will only be seeing him for 2 weeks. At least we have someone lined up to do the 24 hour baby checkup.
Then, last night we went to my weekly midwife appointment. I will have an appointment every Wednesday between now and when I give birth. Lots of good news: I am cleared to give birth at the birth center pending one last ultrasound tomorrow to make sure the baby is growing normally. I weight 140 pounds, which means I have gained 23 pounds since I got pregnant – a decent number. I am no longer anemic, I don’t have group B strep, and (surprise) I don’t have syphilis! Even my fundal height is catching up – I am only 3 cm small now, as opposed to 4 cm last time.
I have a dentist appointment today which I am completely psyched about since my gums are totally rotting. Stupid pregnancy gingivitis. And I am so obsessive about the dental hygiene! I don’t deserve to be punished like this.
I contacted the other mohel to get his information. Now we have a list of numbers to call just in case. We had talked about renting space in the Temple for the brit milah, but then Kelly called and found out it costs like $325. So much for that.
Tonight we are going to Molly’s baby shower. Much fun will be had by all.
Oh, also the car is dying. We took it in today and the mechanic was like, your car has major issues. I’m like, I KNOW – this is the third time I have brought it in for the same problem, so why didn’t you find these issues before? I am going to ask for a discount if they tell me that these issues existed less than a month ago (June 24) when I brought it in. All they found then was a baffle loose in the muffler, and the mechanic said it was not something I needed to worry about fixing. Now they are like, OH F@*# YOUR CAR IS DYING.
Kelly’s going to a New Dad class this weekend which will teach him how to change diapers, bathe the baby, etc. Cool beans. He’s also preaching on Sunday. Oh, also his name change came through and he has already submitted the papers to get a new Social Security card assigned, which should arrive in the mail in a week and a half. Then he can get a new license. Then he will be so legit!
Also, my boss said that I could leave work a few hours early every day, in the hopes that that will allow me to work longer. Which is good, cuz I need more time to space out, sleep, and relax.
Well, the baby is kicking around in there, trying to expand the dwelling space. I can feel lots of “small parts” on my right side, alternately poking me in the ribs and the vagina. Yay!
My appointment with Tiffany went well last night. I peed in a cup, swabbed my perineum for group b strep, and had 2 vials of blood drawn (to test for anemia and syphilis), got weighed (137 lbs), had my belly measured (31 cm), and had my blood pressure taken (very low as always). I also signed the form that says I understand and agree to the constraints of giving birth at the Cambridge Birth Center and got to ask a few questions about breaking the waters, which they do there at 8 cm dilation. I also got two prescriptions – one for acyclovir to prevent herpes outbreaks. If you have a herpes outbreak when you go into labor, it’s an automatic C-section. Better safe than sorry. The other is for a topical anti-fungal powder. I got a heat rash a while ago that isn’t going away, so I suspect fungus – something like this has happened once before.
Kelly gave notice today, which is exciting. He gave the date of Friday, August 1st, which is also the date I have told my office will probably be my last day (my due date is the following Tuesday). If nothing is happening on the labor front and our apartment is all ready for the baby (somewhat unlikely), then we may choose to work longer if it is convenient for our offices.
I got caught in this amazing thunderstorm yesterday. I parked the car just as it started and was fishing around in my purse in the Whole Foods parking lot when gravel-sized chunks of hail started hitting the car with violent, sideways-blowing winds, lighting and thunder, and so much rain that the air misted. I was stuck in the car for 20 minutes waiting for it to let up enough so I could go into the store. It was a bit scary, but not as bad as last week when I was outside and lightning crashed down right on top of me out of nowhere. I screamed, jumped, and uselessly covered my head with my hands, of course. Today it is 90 degrees and more thunderstorms are predicted. It feels so hot and humid out. I am drinking a lot of water, but maybe if it’s so hot in our apartment tonight, we’ll turn the A/C on in the bedroom to try and cool it and then go see Hulk. The weather is supposed to break tomorrow and be in the 70s. That would be nice.
I got an appointment with a pediatrician recommended by the birth center for 2 weeks from now. We need him to see the baby 24 hours after birth, but the receptionist I spoke to did not know if he would be able to do that if I gave birth on a Friday or Saturday. She said I could ask him when I met with him. Grrrreat. If not, we’ll have to scramble to find a pediatrician. I also called 2 mohels recommended to me by Rabbi Andy Vogel. One has his own website: Cantor Sam Pessaroff. I spoke to his wife, who said just give him a call after I have the baby. The other is a urologist who is out of town until next week. Finally, I called the insurance company to make sure that they cover births billed through the Cambridge Health Alliance, which is how the birth center bills. Yes, they do. I have to figure out the paperwork to add the baby to my insurance after birth, but I did find out that the baby is covered under my insurance for 36 hours.
Last Wednesday (June 4) I had an appointment with Tiffany, my midwife. The appointment went well. I had a few questions for her, which were answered to my satisfaction. How can you tell what position the baby is in? (It’s too early to tell – the baby is still moving around a lot at this point.) Will my anemia affect my ability to give birth in the birth center? (Probably not – only very severe cases of anemia are transferred to the hospital. Even though I am taking Floradix twice daily, I will probably get a bit more anemic as the pregnancy goes on because my blood volume will continue to expand and red blood cells take months to manufacture. However, this should not be a problem.) Tiffany filled out the forms for my FMLA maternity leave from Tufts, and I filled out a form to get my medical records released so I could take a copy of them with me to Seattle just in case.
As usual, I peed in a cup and got weighed and had my fundal height measured. My fundal height was less than would be expected for my gestational age, so Tiffany ordered an ultrasound for me to make sure that the baby was developing normally. Because babies vary so much in size, only babies who measure below the 10th percentile or above the 90th percentile in size are considered abnormal. I was worried all week about it. What if my baby wasn’t growing right? There could be many possible reasons for this, including malfunctioning placenta and malnutrition. All “mal” – bad! On the other hand, the constant movement in my belly was very reassuring and the baby certainly feels big!
I had the ultrasound yesterday, and all is well. I could not be more “normal” – my baby is in the 49th percentile in terms of size. Exactly in the middle of the curve. The ultrasound machine estimated his or her current height at just over 18 cm and current weight at over 4 and a half pounds. Very reassuring!! The only lame part about this ultrasound was getting jabbed really hard by the tech, who wanted to get a good shot of the skull circumference. The baby (once again) was in a not-ideal position, with its head tucked down under my public bone. It felt like the tech was trying to pry my pubic bone up with the wand. Fun. And for the rest of the day, the baby was grumpy, full of activity and wiggling. I am sure it got a headache from all the pressure!
The other big pregnancy happening was the horrible heat this week. The heat index got up to 105 degrees with the humidity on Tuesday, and the heat and humidity combined have been brutal. Not only am I not sleeping well, but my feet have been swelling. The weather is back down to 80 today though, which means my swelling is gone. We have window unit A/Cs in our apartment, but they only cool the temperature to about 15 degrees below outside, so if it’s 100 outside it is still 85 in the apartment and too hot to sleep. I am hoping that this whole summer will not be like that. The trip to Seattle tomorrow sounds great, and I am really looking forward to the shower.
I keep logging on to TheThingsIWant.com to add more items to my list, but it is very overwhelming. I think I need to actually go to some stores to see what they have. It’s hard to tell, for instance, which stroller handle will be more comfortable in terms of angle, grip, and height without actually holding them. Similarly, which crib is sturdiest and is the right height to bend over the rails. I am going to try to add a few more things today, though. Consumer Reports recommends the Chicco Key Fit as the best infant car seat, and that seems like the kind of thing you don’t want to skimp on.
Alex just emailed the baby shower menu, which sounds yummy enough that I am going to post it here.
I am so excited to see my family and friends!! And just for your information, I do like it when people put a hand on or rub my tummy. I think people hesitate to do that, and I would be totally weirded out if a stranger did it, but I love it when my friends or family get to feel King Kong monkey around in there. I recently discovered that my little munchkin (Mischieverina is our current nickname) loves to be rubbed as well. If I rub or put hands on my sides, she or he moves so that she can get the attention, which is pretty uncomfortable for me! If I just rub or put hands on the middle part of my belly and rub up and down rather than side to side, he will move into a much more comfortable vertical position. Now I only rub in the middle up and down, and I think we’re both happier. This kid is going to love getting massages!
New books I think I need: books on breastfeeding, infant massage, the first year of life, and infant health and care. We’re going to take an infant CPR class, but I’m not sure I also need the breastfeeding class or the newborn essentials class. Each class costs money! I’ve looked into Rochester mommies groups, and there are a lot of them. I am planning on hooking up with at least one group to make some friends when we move there.
I can’t wait to be in Sea-town! Got to go buy those maternity compression hose for the plane today.
Kelly and I went to see Tiffany (my midwife) on Wednesday, and had a good appointment. I brought a copy of the birth plan that I wrote up, and she looked it over and then added it to my medical files. I had to take the routine gestational diabetes test, which involves drinking this horrible sugary drink and then having your blood drawn an hour later. The results were back yesterday morning – I do not have diabetes, but I am anemic. I have been sporadically taking an iron supplement, but now I will get more serious about it.
Kelly did laundry last night, so first the first time since we bought it last weekend I could use my body pillow (we had to wash the pillowcase). It was great! I slept much better than the previous couple of nights. However, the pillow we got was cheap ($9 at Target) and I can tell that with a few months of use it will get flatter where I wrap my legs around it. My plan is to fluff it every day and hope that it survives until August, when I will finally be able to sleep on my back again (after giving birth).
Here is the best news: I have gained 16 pounds so far! Since I was of an average weight prior to pregnancy, I should gain somewhere in the range of 25-35 pounds. I’ve never been a real gainer and a vegan diet is not that calorically dense, so I was a bit worried about putting on the pounds. No need to fear, apparently. My weight gain curve is very encouraging.
Lots of strong moving and kicking from the belly.
Allergy season has begun in force. I had an allergy attack that was so bad yesterday that I got a nosebleed after sneezing uncontrollably. Kelly ran out last night to get me the antihistamine recommended by the ACAAI and the AAFP, chlorpheniramine (Chlor-Trimeton). Taking this before bed is the other reason that I slept so well. Like Benadryl, it has a sedative effect. I could take Zyrtec or Claratin, which are both Category B, but obviously they are new enough to the market that effects on fetal health are unknown (there is no controlled human pregnancy drug testing for obvious reasons). I unfortunately cannot take Patanol eye drops, which I am usually all about (they are Category C), so I will have to clean my eyes with baby shampoo and use hot compresses liberally until the season ends.
I bellydanced again last night.
I just had my April meeting with my midwife, in which I asked a TON of questions and took up a lot more of her time than I think she had planned to give me.
Here are some answers:
I guess what I got out of all of that is that it is up to the pregnant lay woman to do her own research and become informed about the various interventions, routines, and procedures that medical centers provide and what the appropriate indications are for them. I am also getting the sense that I am a homebirthing type of person, which may be the case for baby number two.
Any advice on how to help the first birth go smoothly?
Self-diagnosed anemia, that is. Let me back up a little bit.
Monday I got my standard 18-week ultrasound, which takes about an hour and in which the technician looks for anatomical abnormalities. Once again, my baby was lying with its feet towards the ultrasound wand and its head towards my spine, making it impossible for the technician to look at the heart and brain, two crucial things this ultrasound is supposed to accomplish. I have another appointment in 2 weeks, and hopefully by then my baby will have grown too large to hang out in that position. I guess I could just blow the whole thing off – I mean, at this point I have had 2 1/2 hours total of ultrasonic waves directed right at my fetus over the course of 4 appointments – is it like standing in front of a microwave? It doesn’t seem like it could possibly be a good thing, and I am not sure how necessary it is since even the technician said that the huge increase in routine ultrasounds in the last 10 or 20 years has not had much effect on outcomes. But…I like it. I like to see the baby feet and ‘wittle toesies’. It makes me feel closer to the baby inside me. If for no other reason than that, I will go back again for another hour of someone banging on my bladder with a lubricant-covered plastic wand.
Wednesday I saw Tiffany. Kelly was with me for both appointments, which was nice. We got the blood test results, and everything came out okay – no higher risk for folic-acid related abnormalities. We also got to feel the bulge where the uterus is – it’s about at my belly button right now. I gained another pound this month, right on target. And I was pleased to report that I have been feeling some movement down there – both the “fluttering” sensation the books talk about, as well as some round ligament pain that feels like quick jabs or pinches. All in all, my baby looks healthy and well.
I got a prescription for Flagyl, aka Metronidazole tablets, to treat my bacterial vaginosis, which I have some trepidation about. The last time I took metronidazole tablets was last August, and it made me feel weak, out of sorts, and also completely took away my appetite…one of the possible side effects is anorexia, and I lost about 5-10 pounds in the week or so I took the medicine, which is the main reason I was at the low end of my weight when I got pregnant in November. It doesn’t seem that there is any other way to treat b.v. than with this incredibly strong drug, which has a laundry list of side effects. I wish there was some sort of alternative treatment I could try first. Any leads, anyone?
Yesterday, I felt fine when I woke up, but at work in the morning I started to feel nauseous and got a sinus headache. I ate something and the nausea went away, but then around noon I began to feel extremely light-headed. I was just sitting at my desk when my eyesight went completely red and the insides of my ears went rushing and cold, like a sudden drop in blood pressure. It sometimes happens when I stand up, but this time I was just sitting there! I knew that I was about to throw up, so I went to the bathroom and tossed the soup and bread I had had as a snack. I was afraid of fainting on the stairs on the way to the bathroom! I sat on the bathroom floor for a while with my head between my knees. After I went back to my office, I went home for the rest of the day and mostly rested on the couch or in bed. This morning my headache is still there, as is the faintness and weakness. I feel crummy. I came into work, but I’m not getting much done (evidence this post).
I think this is happening because at around 20 weeks ( I am at 19 weeks and 4 days today), your blood volume shoots up. This can cause anemia if you don’t have enough iron to create new red blood cells. At the last appointment I had a month ago, Tiffany told me that I had started my pregnancy with low iron numbers – not anemic, but the possibility of developing anemia if I didn’t eat enough iron. Anemia can cause low blood pressure, faintness, and headache. I am going to start supplementing with iron, washed down with orange juice, and hopefully that will help.
One of the books I have (“What To Expect”) says that it is almost impossible to eat enough iron during pregnancy. That seems insane to me – what did women do before supplementation, then? Kelly and I call “What To Expect” the “Will it hurt my baby?” book because the whole book is organized around fearful questions followed by the phrase “Will it hurt my baby?” Fortunately, you’ll be glad to know that anemia, in general, will not hurt the baby – it is very rare for babies to be born iron-deficient, and it seems that this is one of the cases where the baby manages to satisfy its nutritional needs before the mother.
I’m showing now, enough that I can’t wear any of my work pants, but not enough that the casual observer could possibly tell. I seriously need work pants with a stretchy waistband!
I can’t comfortably button my pants anymore, although I can still wear them for now. I am expanding a bit, and I think it is even visible when I am naked. (Ask Kelly.)
My nausea is less, but not gone. But it is less! It is better than it has been since before I found out I was pregnant. I have stopped barfing for the moment, although I am wary of saying it won’t happen again. And I am getting a little bit hungrier.
For the first time in a while, I have some energy and want to move around. I think I will try my Buff Moms To Be video again, and take up walking when the weather doesn’t completely suck. Unfortunately, the weather looks like it is going to mostly suck. I was thinking for a while that I would do some kind of dance class (Country Western Line Dancing, for instance), but then I read that I am not supposed to do anything with bouncing or that gets my heartrate up too high. So I am going to ask my midwife about it tomorrow when I see her.
I got these ultrasounds a few weeks ago that were supposed to be part of the “ultrascreening” process – in combination with a blood test, they would determine the odds of having a child with chromosomal abnormalities or neural tube defects. The ultrasounds have to be done by the end of the 13th week, and I went twice but neither time the fetus was cooperating so I couldn’t get the test done. After all that, missing work and all, I found out that what Kelly and I are actually interested in testing for (neural tube defects because I was not taking folic acid in preparation for pregnancy) does not require ultrascreening at all, but is testing for as part of a standard blood workup around the 18th week. I wish my midwife had let me know that there were multiple testing options and what each one tested for before sending me off on that wild goose chase. On the other hand, that was the bad midwife who I am not seeing any more.
But Kelly and I did get to see the images on the ultrasound, which was pretty special. The technician kept referring to the fetus as “he” rather than “it” or alternating between he and she. I was worried that the tech could tell the sex of the child and was sort of letting us know indirectly, but the internet tells me it would be very hard to determine the sex at 13 weeks, and also the fetus was turned away from the “camera” (wand?) most of the time, which was the whole problem, so it seems like it would have been hard for them to see. I don’t want to know the sex of the baby. It seems like just another thing to stress about. By not knowing, I can reserve thinking about what it means to have a girl or a boy until reality becomes apparent.
I am going to try to cook something new tonight from The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook by Cathe Olson. There are a lot of good-looking recipes.
I am taking the day off from work tomorrow, but the weather is supposed to SUUUUCK. In other news, I finally bought a laptop and it should arrive by Friday. Rock! Thanks, parents!!
Pregnancy comes with a lot of fear, and much of it does not originate with the expectant parents. That kind of fear, I can understand: How will we afford a child? How will being parents affect our relationship? Am I eating well enough for the pregnancy? Will a car accident/high-altitude plane travel/overheating/being too cold damage the embryo? Will I have a miscarriage? These fears seem reasonable to me.
But there is a lot of fear that is just attached to the tiny statistical chance that something, something will go wrong and instead of a healthy, “normal” child, we will end up with some kind of monster. I mean, seriously, a monster. For instance in the book Baby Catcher by Peggy Vincent, which is chock full of inspiring birth stories from a midwife, the last tale is of a pregnancy that goes horribly wrong–the baby is stillborn, and through intense medical intervention a doctor manages to create a pulse and breathing. There has been so much oxygen deprivation, however, that the child must be institutionalized for life, and all it ever does is scream. Isn’t being locked in an institution, with no ability to interact or enjoy life, screaming, forever, everyone’s worst nightmare?
A lot of the prenatal screenings and tests are predicated on a worst-case scenario. I am between 9 and 11 weeks, the appropriate time for Chorionic villus sampling. This is invasive test (they stick a needle in you) is basically a biopsy, the analysis of which “may indicate” any of more than 200 disorders. It is used to detect, for instance, genetic and chromosomal abnormalities. I am low-risk for gen/chrom abnormalities – K’s family has no history of abnormalities, and although I have an Ashkenazi Jewish background, it’s only on my dad’s side and K doesn’t share that background. As far as I know, no one in my family tree has ever had Tay-Sachs, making it unlikely that I carry the disease.
3% of all people are born with birth defects, or “abnormalities of structure, function, or body metabolism that are present at birth.” That seems like a small number until you realize that it is 1 in 33. Only about 30 or 40% of birth defects have a clear cause. And there’s not a lot you can do about it if you learn during pregnancy that your fetus has one. Sometime a condition can be treated in utero, sometimes knowing about a condition allows for the chance to take greater precautions during birth, and sometimes knowledge of the condition results in the couple having a therapeutic abortion. A lot of times, though, it seems like it wouldn’t do you much good to know.
My general sense is that it’s best to do the less invasive testing, like ultrasound and blood testing, and then unless something indicating trouble comes up, put my faith in the universe.
 | Alex on We Found An Apartment |
 | arirosenbaum on Couple of appointments |
| arirosenbaum on 14 Suter Terrace |
 | Adrianne on 14 Suter Terrace |
| Adrianne on 14 Suter Terrace |
