33 week home visit

In the wee hours of the morning last Friday I got a call from my doula inviting me to the birth of one of her clients who at the time was in the pushing stage of labor and headed for the hospital. The baby was born 4 hours later and my original plan to drive to Maryland for my 32 week prenatal visit was abandoned in favor of a reschedule.

Susan arrived yesterday afternoon with perfect timing--my work day was practically over, and I had just put Roscoe down for his afternoon snooze.

Little Sears is still positioned head down, with his body along my right side. His heart rate was in the 130's. My fundal height is back on track at 33 weeks. I've now gained close to 30 pounds.

We spent most of the visit discussing the birth I attended last week. While in many ways it affirmed my belief that I am best birthing at home, the abrupt nature of the experience had left me feeling apprehensive about unexpected emergencies. In short, the laboring mother received an epidural, the baby's heart rate dipped (as is a common side effect), and eventually plummeted to 70 beats per minute. Within 90 seconds the room was emptied--mother, father, and nursing staff evacuated to the operating room for a c-section.

Intermittent fetal monitoring (as practiced by my midwife) has been shown to be as effective as continuous fetal monitoring--with far fewer reactive interventions. There's also the consideration that an epidural inherently alters the course of natural labor because it restricts the mother's mobility (and her ability to facilitate the baby's descent, or react to situations like a drop in heart rate, with a change in position). Interestingly, my midwife said that in her experience the vast majority of hospital transfers are for first time mothers who get tired and want/need an epidural. A hospital transfer for a safety related emergency is very rare.

At each visit we reiterate the plan that I will alert Susan at my first inclination of labor. Of course there's no way to know how quickly my labor will progress, but it seems that 2-3 hours is the current estimate. I have no interest in free-birthing, however, our conversation today made me feel more confident in the event that the baby is born before she arrives--even though I still don't want to think of the possibility. The good news is that naturally fast labors tend to be efficient and inherently complication-free.

So what's next? I'll be making one last trip to Maryland in 2 weeks (at 35 weeks), our doula/birth assistant will visit us at 37 weeks, and Susan will make another home visit at 38.5 weeks. Whee! Despite the downtrodden mood of Monday's post regarding the amount of time left in this pregnancy, if Little Sears is born around the time that Roscoe was born, I have only 5 weeks to go! While I don't want to give myself false hope, it may be just the thing I need to get through the next few weeks.

23 Weeks

Roscoe and I set out for Maryland this morning to meet with my midwife for a third prenatal appointment. As many times as she's been to our house, we've never been to hers and part of the deal to work together again was to share the burden of travel. The drive took just under an hour and traffic was a breeze.

Susan greeted Roscoe with a basket of toys (that just so happened to be vehicles of all kinds--perfect!) and he was content for most of the visit. We chatted some about my diet and how I was feeling. She followed up on my hip complaints from our last visit, and we further discussed the evolution of the nursing transition as well as our intent for Roscoe to attend the birth of his little brother (assuming that he wants to be there, and assuming that he isn't asleep).

Little Sears had a heart rate in the 130s. Roscoe was very interested in the Doppler and listened intently at first when we could hear the heart tones. Then he started exclaiming, "baby!, baby!", and "see? see?" I told him the baby was in my belly and that it would be a few more months before he could see him, realizing as I spoke that months are pretty intangible to a boy his age.

My fundal height measured 25 cm (instead of the expected 23, one cm for every week of the pregnancy), which is nothing to worry about but I'll be curious to see how it measures at our next visit. I measured "big" with Roscoe at several points throughout the pregnancy but babies have growth spurts too, or perhaps his positioning was a little lopsided. In the end, all was well.

Susan felt for the position of the baby and noted that he is head down already, and unlikely to turn at this point. I asked her if she delivered breech babies and she said no, so hopefully he stays put!

My next appointment is scheduled for mid January, which feels just around the corner. I'll be 28 weeks by then, and the gestational diabetes screening is on the agenda. Yum. Last time I got to drink peach/mango nectar. It was delicious.

That's all for now, folks!

Seventeen weeks

Our midwife resides in Maryland and travels to her clients who live in the surrounding area. I love home visits but the nature of the profession sometimes complicates scheduling.

At 12:30 this morning Susan delivered a baby and didn't make it back home until 5 am. Then she slept, woke up, and made the trip back to Virginia to begin her prenatal rounds. Our appointment was scheduled for 10, and then rescheduled for 11. In some ways I love when this happens because I get a first person account of her baby catching adventures, and I enjoy every opportunity to hear about recent births.

Roscoe and Susan were reunited for the first time since he was a newborn. It was an event that I've been looking forward to for a long time. Roscoe woke from his nap and was a little shy at first. Once fully awake, he began demonstrating his physical tricks: jumping, climbing, coloring, chewing a whole starburst. He seemed interested in Susan only after some time had passed, offering up one of his cars and also bringing books to her.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, or why I was left feeling a little disappointed. Maybe I was hoping for something along the lines of, "Oh my, you delivered me! And changed my Momma's life forever! I've been saving this hug just for you!" Ha. Perhaps next time.

Little Sears is growing right on track. The top of my uterus is almost to my belly button now. We heard the heartbeat on Doppler very clearly (in the 140's), but my attention was diverted by a suddenly tearful Roscoe, who seemed especially empathetic and concerned for the duration of the visit. It's a good thing that he'll have plenty of appointments between now and April to get to know Susan a little better.

We spent most of the hour talking about how I am feeling these days, discussing ways to alleviate exercise induced SPD, weaning, and my mini fear about precipitous labor. It's our time spent talking that I savor most about my appointments with Susan.

In other news, we stumbled on a boys name last night that hit us in the same way that Roscoe did. So, I think we have our final two contenders! One for a boy and one for a girl. And we have just 12 more days to wait.