Pregnancy Update

Things with this pregnancy have become a little crazy lately. I have been really lucky in that I have never had problems with high blood pressure, or really any of the complications that can pop up during pregnancy before now.

But lately, the baby isn’t growing at the rate he should be. I was right on track until somewhere around 30 weeks, at which point my stomach stopped growing at the correct rate. As of right now, I’m 37 weeks but am measuring 33 weeks- a month off. At first the doctor and I figured that I just ‘hide’ a pregnancy well. This is actually true- I never got REALLY big with JJ or McKenna, and they were both about 7lbs when they were born. But as the growth has continued to slow, the doctor is taking more precautions.

I had an ultrasound last week that showed that the baby has a good sized head but that his abdomen and femur are measuring about 32 weeks. The estimate of his weight from that ultrasound was 5lbs 10oz, but because the head is bigger that estimate could be off quite a bit. Plus, ultrasounds become less and less reliable as the baby gets bigger anyway.

So now I am having weekly non stress tests too. If anything looks funny on one of these, they will just induce labor right away. I am full term, so I guess this isn’t really that big of a deal. My first non stress test was yesterday. I was so worried that something was going to go wrong that I was in a panic trying to scramble to do last minute laundry, packing my hospital bag, getting the house cleaned up, etc. But luckily the test went just fine and I wasn’t induced.

First, they measure how much amniotic fluid there is via ultrasound. The number needs to be between a 10 and a 26. The first time she got a 9.6 and since it was so close to 10 she decided to try it again. The second time she found a bigger pocket of fluid which bumped the number up to 10.5 so that was ok.

Next, they put a fetal monitor on you to measure the baby’s heart rate for 20 minutes. The rate needs to go up at least twice within the 20 minutes for you to pass. As that was probably the first time I had sat down all day, the baby was very active during the test and his heart rate went up 5 or 6 times. So he did really well on that.

I am supposed to do kick counts every day too. (Actually a good idea for all pregnant women.) But I just laughed as she explained that I needed to feel 10 movements within an hour- I probably had 10 movements in the time it took her to tell me that! That is the one thing that is very reassuring- this baby is VERY active. He keeps me up all night and it seems like he is constantly moving. So that is good.

My next test and Dr.’s appt is on Monday which is also James’ birthday. I am still worried about the baby’s size, but there just isn’t anything I can do about it, so I’m trying to keep my mind on other things for now.

When I had JJ we had just moved into our apartment 4 days before. I spent those 4 days sleeping (moving is SO exhausting, let alone when you do it at 40 weeks gestation) and getting the nursery put together. When we brought him home I didn’t know where ANYTHING was. It was a bad recovery, and I had such an awful time because I couldn’t find anything. I remember one day I really wanted to make some pasta but I couldn’t find my pots or pans yet. I was crawling around on the floor opening and moving boxes all around in my search. All the while completely exhausted, in pain, and with a jaundiced baby whom I didn’t really know how to take care of yet. It was really bad.

So now I have this totally irrational impulse to have EVERYTHING in its place, cleaned, organized, folded, prepared, in good repair, and ready for when I go to the hospital. Yeah, that’s not really feasible with a 2 and 4 year old in the house, but I still have to try! Apparently my logical inner self doesn’t yell as loud as my neurotic one does. The world will not end if I go to the hospital without having mopped the floor first!

Anyway, here is a recent (blurry) picture of what I look like. We’re still trying to figure out how to get our new camera to focus.