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rivkaScariest words spoken by the midwife last night: "Before you leave, go ahead and schedule the rest of your visits up through your due date." Up. Through. My. Due date. That's how close it is.
I've hit the rapidly increasing stage of pregnancy - not just baby and belly size, but also number of appointments. I have been going in every five weeks. The next visit is in four weeks, then three weeks after that, then two weeks, then one week, and weekly after that. Two visits from now we need to have our birth plan and hospital admissions paperwork complete, and the midwife will start checking my cervix to see if I'm getting ready to deliver.
Yikes.
For the most part, everything looks great. I'm finally over my prepregnancy weight and gaining at a reasonable rate (six pounds in the last five weeks). The bloodwork I had taken last week is normal. There's no sugar or protein in my urine. My blood pressure is great. My hands and feet aren't swelling. The baby has a strong, steady heartbeat. She's lying on the right side of my belly, with her head down and her feet up by my diaphragm. (This is a refreshing change from the week she spent with her feet firmly planted on my bladder.)
What they never tell you about pregnancy, no matter how forthcoming they're being: The further along you are, the harder it is to pee in a cup.
Today's geeky pregnancy factoid: The distance in centimeters between the pubic bone and the top of the uterus is equal to the number of weeks pregnant you are. (I'm actually one centimeter off. But how cool a correspondence is that, anyway?)
New baby trick: Now that her feet are in a leaner part of my belly, I can see her kick. Not just feel, but see. I first noticed it in the bathtub, but when she's being particularly vigorous I can also sometimes see her through my clothes. That's just weird. And cool, mind you - but weird.
Second childbirth class:
I continue to love this class. Tuesday night we spent the whole evening discussing prelabor and the first stage of labor, which, for those of you not immersed in a home study obstetrics course, covers everything up to the point at which the cervix is 10cm dilated and the mother is ready to start pushing the baby out.
Michele (our instructor) did a nice job of reframing a lot of the uncomfortable and whine-inducing ninth-month symptoms as signs that the body is preparing for labor. I don't know if that will be enough to convince me that peeing every ten minutes, sitting uncomfortably, and backaches are good symptoms rather than bad - but I suspect that it will be helpful to at least know that they can be interpreted that way.
We spent a lot of time dividing up late pregnancy symptoms into "preliminary," "possible," and "definite" signs of labor, and talking about how those symptoms feel and how you know things are starting to get moving. We also took a brief detour into "call your midwife immediately" territory, some of which I didn't know. (For example, it wouldn't occur to me to call the midwife if I didn't feel the baby move for an hour.) We covered, extensively, what it's like when your water breaks and how to be sure that's really what happened. We learned how to time contractions.
Then we got into real labor - early labor ("try to sleep, try to let your husband sleep"), active labor (complete with a vivid dramatization of the difference between an early labor contraction and an active labor contraction), and transition ("Most of you wrote on your registration forms that you wanted to have an unmedicated labor. Transition is when you'll want to change your mind."). She described how the contractions change from phase to phase and what comfort measures might help in different stages - next week we'll apparently spend the whole class practicing comfort measures. She introduced us to the "Three R's" of coping with labor - relaxation, rhythm, and ritual - and we talked about what each one is for, what it might look like, and why it's helpful.
We watched a video of a single couple going through labor and delivery with a midwife. She encouraged us to keep track of all the different things they used as comfort measures (heat, massage, showers, rocking, changing positions, encouragement, walking...), and also emphasized the mother's emotional state - how she got the most discouraged and wanted to give up just as she was getting very close to the end. The video made me cry, but I also found it tremendously helpful to actually watch someone in labor. I feel as though I'm getting a much better sense of what to expect, and that always makes me feel more in control.
We finished up the class with a mini-seminar on breathing - practicing "deep cleansing breaths" and "light breaths," which it turns out is what I know as diaphragmatic breathing and chest breathing - and a relaxation exercise. I had trouble with the relaxation exercise because I kept going into professional-critique mode and analyzing what she was doing. I've got to find a way to turn that off.
Homework this week: find out about our own birth if possible, figure out who's going to be at the birth and what their roles will be, start choosing music, schedule a hospital tour, and repeat last week's massage trade if desired.
I've hit the rapidly increasing stage of pregnancy - not just baby and belly size, but also number of appointments. I have been going in every five weeks. The next visit is in four weeks, then three weeks after that, then two weeks, then one week, and weekly after that. Two visits from now we need to have our birth plan and hospital admissions paperwork complete, and the midwife will start checking my cervix to see if I'm getting ready to deliver.
Yikes.
For the most part, everything looks great. I'm finally over my prepregnancy weight and gaining at a reasonable rate (six pounds in the last five weeks). The bloodwork I had taken last week is normal. There's no sugar or protein in my urine. My blood pressure is great. My hands and feet aren't swelling. The baby has a strong, steady heartbeat. She's lying on the right side of my belly, with her head down and her feet up by my diaphragm. (This is a refreshing change from the week she spent with her feet firmly planted on my bladder.)
What they never tell you about pregnancy, no matter how forthcoming they're being: The further along you are, the harder it is to pee in a cup.
Today's geeky pregnancy factoid: The distance in centimeters between the pubic bone and the top of the uterus is equal to the number of weeks pregnant you are. (I'm actually one centimeter off. But how cool a correspondence is that, anyway?)
New baby trick: Now that her feet are in a leaner part of my belly, I can see her kick. Not just feel, but see. I first noticed it in the bathtub, but when she's being particularly vigorous I can also sometimes see her through my clothes. That's just weird. And cool, mind you - but weird.
Second childbirth class:
I continue to love this class. Tuesday night we spent the whole evening discussing prelabor and the first stage of labor, which, for those of you not immersed in a home study obstetrics course, covers everything up to the point at which the cervix is 10cm dilated and the mother is ready to start pushing the baby out.
Michele (our instructor) did a nice job of reframing a lot of the uncomfortable and whine-inducing ninth-month symptoms as signs that the body is preparing for labor. I don't know if that will be enough to convince me that peeing every ten minutes, sitting uncomfortably, and backaches are good symptoms rather than bad - but I suspect that it will be helpful to at least know that they can be interpreted that way.
We spent a lot of time dividing up late pregnancy symptoms into "preliminary," "possible," and "definite" signs of labor, and talking about how those symptoms feel and how you know things are starting to get moving. We also took a brief detour into "call your midwife immediately" territory, some of which I didn't know. (For example, it wouldn't occur to me to call the midwife if I didn't feel the baby move for an hour.) We covered, extensively, what it's like when your water breaks and how to be sure that's really what happened. We learned how to time contractions.
Then we got into real labor - early labor ("try to sleep, try to let your husband sleep"), active labor (complete with a vivid dramatization of the difference between an early labor contraction and an active labor contraction), and transition ("Most of you wrote on your registration forms that you wanted to have an unmedicated labor. Transition is when you'll want to change your mind."). She described how the contractions change from phase to phase and what comfort measures might help in different stages - next week we'll apparently spend the whole class practicing comfort measures. She introduced us to the "Three R's" of coping with labor - relaxation, rhythm, and ritual - and we talked about what each one is for, what it might look like, and why it's helpful.
We watched a video of a single couple going through labor and delivery with a midwife. She encouraged us to keep track of all the different things they used as comfort measures (heat, massage, showers, rocking, changing positions, encouragement, walking...), and also emphasized the mother's emotional state - how she got the most discouraged and wanted to give up just as she was getting very close to the end. The video made me cry, but I also found it tremendously helpful to actually watch someone in labor. I feel as though I'm getting a much better sense of what to expect, and that always makes me feel more in control.
We finished up the class with a mini-seminar on breathing - practicing "deep cleansing breaths" and "light breaths," which it turns out is what I know as diaphragmatic breathing and chest breathing - and a relaxation exercise. I had trouble with the relaxation exercise because I kept going into professional-critique mode and analyzing what she was doing. I've got to find a way to turn that off.
Homework this week: find out about our own birth if possible, figure out who's going to be at the birth and what their roles will be, start choosing music, schedule a hospital tour, and repeat last week's massage trade if desired.
