36.5 Weeks

Here is a picture of me at 34 weeks. We missed the picture of 35 weeks and 36 weeks is on the new camera, which needs hardware to upload the image.

Saw the other midwife, Lindsay, today. Very nice. I'm excited about delivering with this practice.

I had high blood pressure (for me, anyway) 108 over 60 something. I'm 38 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, which is about normal for me, maybe a smidgen high, for this stage (I can tell by my hips that about 15 pounds will be mine to keep and work off later).

The baby's heart rate was in the 150's. Lindsay says sometimes the heart rate slows down before birth because it doesn't need to be so fast, but keeping up a good pace like this one is still normal and doesn't mean anything (she was sure to point out that it was not an indicator of how active a newborn it would be :)).

They took a sample for the GBS test today and will find out the results in two days. If it's positive, I'll get antibiotics in labor every four hours through a heploc. I told Lindsay about my concern about a yeast infection in reaction (since I've had so many in this pregnancy), and she said they would be very proactive about dealing with that and other side effects of such powerful antibiotics. She jokingly told me to think "negative thoughts," but only for this test, not in general.

My fundal height is still measuring 2 weeks big, about 38 weeks, and Lindsay said she could feel all the extra fluid near the top of my uterus (yes, I am just like a big water balloon right now). I joke that our baby just loves swishing around in her own personal swimming pool. Lindsay smiled when she said she would have to put a note on my chart to watch out for projectile fluid when my water broke. It's happened to her before and she wanted to be prepared. :)

The cervical exam was optional, but I opted for it out of curiosity. I am 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced. This is about where I was with Hailey a few weeks before I delivered, so it doesn't mean anything other than I won't need a cervical softener at 42 weeks to induce (doubt I will go that long, anyway). At least I'm 20% of the way there already, even if it's the easiest 20% of labor.

Lindsay said the baby was at a -1 station and she pushed it to a -2, so in the right spot, but still able to float out of it. That would explain why I sometimes suddenly get a lot of pressure in my hip and lose the ability to control my leg muscles for a few seconds. It probably also means that we'll go straight to the hospital when my water breaks just to be sure the baby was properly engaged at the time.

When I was headed down to my appointment, the office called and said that one of Lindsay's patients was on her way and in labor, so I should expect my visit to be short and sweet. It wasn't. I waited for twenty or thirty minutes, which surprised me. Lindsay came in and said she had just come BACK from a birth. Apparently it was a women with a speedy labor, and they had labored at home for a few hours and waited a little too long for the sitter, so the baby was born only 15 minutes after they arrived at the hospital. This made me glad that, first of all, their office is on the hospital campus, and secondly, that Dan has offered to watch our kids, and he lives a few blocks away and works in Michael's building. I'm not worried about waiting too long because our sitter has a long commute.

I am feeling great these past two days. I had horrible ankle swelling and fatigue through Sunday. But this week, the swelling is gone, I'm not tired during the day, and I'm running errands and cleaning out closets (sounds a lot like nesting, doesn't it?).

Michael bought a new camera (since our old one only works when it feels like it). He also got the crib put together in the upstairs bedroom. We'll probably move the nursery downstairs in the summer, but for now, Hailey is still occasionally coming into our room in the middle of the night with a huge blanket wrapped around her, which isn't a safe situation for stairway travel in the dark. And the baby will be in the portable moses basket for the first few months anyway, so the crib location is not really important.

I have all the baby clothes washed and in drawers, and bought a few basic things like diapers and pacifiers at my last grocery store trip. We really need to practice our relaxation exercises and I need to finish packing the hospital bag. So I'm hoping this baby gives us at least another week to pull things together.