39 Weeks

Today I am 39 + 0 (wks + days) along in my pregnancy. I’m still plugging along … misery and non-misery days … just depending on how much I’ve done, what’s going on, what I’ve eaten recently or in the recent past, etc.

On this past Friday my diaper order was delivered via Fed Ex.

24 “unbleached” Chinese DSQ infant diapers … they are all washed now (4 Hot Wash and Dry cycles) quilted up and lovely, ready for baby!

2 “buff” color Stacinator wool diaper covers … wow are these nice! It’s a lovely knit jersey wool sort of cover with snaps on the sides for closure and size-adjustment. Now that I’ve seen them IRL I know how well they will work and think the price, $21.95 each … is worth it, even with the sizes not being long-term things, needing to upgrade to a “next size” as baby grows bigger.

My midwife goes away today, so if I go into labor … I won’t see her, but someone else. So for now until the 23rd, that’s that. She called us last night, and reminded us of something we’d forgotten to get done, my Pre-natal Lab blood work. Oops. It has to be done beforehand, and we can’t go now until Friday, when hubby gets his next $. I’ve never “gone into labor” early by myself, so we might be OK … We shall see.

With my 1st baby my water broke first, right on the first day of Week 40 around 5-6am. I had an OB and his office had me go to the hospital right away, and I wasn’t “ready” — not in labor — and my cervix hard. So they induced me with Dramamine to “soften my cervix” and that was horrible, and they had me on “Pitocin” from that point as well. It was an all-day affair, took all day and not much progress, but eventually that did resolve and our 1st born arrived at 1:59am. It wasn’t a clear-cut great event though, because I was not aided by the nurses to make the decisions I would have made if they had let me know my REAL options all day long. So I ended up with drugs to “help take the edge off” around 7pm so that I could “progress more” and guess what? It didn’t do anything but make me feel weird and then I asked if I could take a shower and they said “Oh, not now that you’ve had the narcotics” :veryshocked: tell me my options … a shower would have benefitted me more than drugs … I was not in a position to think through that on my own after being on all that Pitocin since like 8:30am, and the Dramamine doses I had had. It’d been a very long unfruitful day and just got worse. At 10pm I wasn’t doing so good and they all talked about me and I was not “with it” didn’t get what was going on and it was mostly that they were going to take me off the Pitocin and put me to sleep for the night and try it again in the morning, or else a C-section was a huge possibility. I didn’t know any of that and that whole time is blurry for me. Apparently once they took me off the Pitocin “my own contractions were there” but not strong enough “in their opinion” so they decided to turn the Pitocin back on sometime after that. Around midnight I had progressed, but wasn’t going all the way fast enough for them, and I was convinced by the nurses that an Epidural would aide my progress, the Pitocin contractions were just so tough to have been under for all those long hours and I caved to their desires. Well, it wasn’t until a long time later that the Epidural folks finally showed up, and that was frustrating to me … so by the time they put it in, guess what? I was “ready to push” and the OB came in and it took awhile, 40-something minutes and baby was born. It wasn’t a pleasant thing since it just didn’t go the way I had wished ahead of time. OB did something that causes problems later on, something I was totally against he insisted I needed, that nasty thing that begins with an “e” and uses a “knife” to perform.

That little cut wasn’t repaired right and I eventually had to have surgery (a few months later) to fix it. It was humilating and painful from day 3 after the birth until months after the surgery.

With my 2nd baby I was going to make sure it worked out better. We had been told by the surgeon that I should most likely have C-sections from there on out. I felt that wasn’t the case, and then was told that “8lb or less” babies could be natural. Like I can fully control that.

So we had one OB at first that would do a C-Section, and at 7 months we switched to another OB, a group, that would do it different, allow me to try natural, but put me on High-Risk. I also hired a Doula.

So things went along and on my 39 week appointment, the very day of 39 weeks, they didn’t like my Blood Pressure numbers and convinced me I had to be induced immediately since Pre-Eclampsia could begin anytime, and the next day was Thanksgiving Day (they didn’t want to be called with me telling them I was illin’ with that during Turkey Time, ya know.) They twisted my arm behind my back, virtually, and so off to the hospital we went. I was at about 3cm and effaced some nice amount, so an induction was going to “work” they said. I was forced to stay in bed except for going potty. I had a Pitocin drip and a BP check every 15-minutes. They kept the BP stuff on me at all times in bed, an Automatic thingie did the work. When I had to go potty I had to take the Pitocin with me, but couldn’t take the BP stuff, so I did go Potty often after awhile, partially to avoid the BP checks, and also to get gravity working (didn’t want to lay down the whole time, uprightness brings on progress!) I wasn’t induced for long, progress kept on going and by 6pm-something I was ready and the OB wasn’t in the room, nurses telling me “don’t push” like I was pushing on purpose, not. OB rushed in and got to work stretching me so I wouldn’t rip or need an E. Baby came fast, and I had just a few internal skid mark sort of rips, no sewing needed, no external tears or rips at all. The dayafter in the women’s section was no picnic, with double-nursing-shifts, and tech-team people in-between … it was bad, always being awaken and asked questions by the techy, and then they’d leave, I’d go back to sleep, and before you knew it, there was the nurse asking the same stuff and doing more. It was a constant stream of people and a nightmare. That was Thanksgiving Day, I was starving and the meal they gave me for lunch was pathetic. Hubby brought up some turkey stuff from the cafeteria. I was starving, starving, starving! That interuption stuff continued on and we got ready to leave the next morning, we could have stayed, but I was antsy to get out of there.

With my next baby we planned a homebirth. My BP went higher near the end, and laying down on my left side always brought it down, and I had no other symptoms of Pregnancy Induced BP problems starting, I was comfy with going along just as I had been, and so Midwife was OK with it. I was 10 or 11 days past my due date and not in labor yet. We talked that day and decided to see about stripping my membranes … I forget what my cervix situation was, but it was going along … and the stripping produced no blood or pain at all. We then decided to use some herbal things to aide my body along, and used a Blue Cohosh/Black Cohosh recipe, I don’t recall the exact details, but it was the Tinctures of each, take one at this time, then the other at this time, alternately, more at first, then later not as much as fast. Then no more. So I started that late afternoon. Nothing was going on. I was plodding along as usual.

At 10pm we were watching TV and eating Ben & Jerry’s “Everything But The” ice cream in the living room. I was having some very light contractions by then, but I felt normal otherwise.

It was around midnight that we decided the contractions were heavier, but nothing much … and at some point we called the midwife and she was in no hurry, but thought it was starting, and would come over eventually. I was contracting then, with 4-plus minutes between, and talking and laughing in-between contractions. She wasn’t concerned that I was that far along, so slowly got ready and would be at the house later.

By the time that was all decided things were going along the same and hubby had to get the bed ready for the birth, and I decided to get into the tub, and then suddenly it all got so intense, and I had to get hubby into the bathroom so I could lean on him for contractions, then he’d go back to the bed to finish dressing it up, and before you knew it, I’d be begging him to come back … well that was “transition” and super soon after, the baby’s top of head was visible and he was telling me not to push and I wasn’t doing anything at all. I was cool as a cucumber then, that “transition” intenseness was over. He was freaking out. Within minutes the baby was born and the midwife was still 15-minutes away.

It was a wonderful birth and when the midwife arrived everything was fine, and we had a nice time getting baby cleaned up and weighed and all of that, and getting a shower for me and everything in order and then we were all alone with our new baby and content as anyone is able to be content, not just that, but blissfully so.

I was pregnant about 4 years later, but the baby didn’t survive for long and I miscarried at 9 weeks, at home, we took care of it ourselves and that comforted me, not having any hospital intervention at all, and everything resolved finely. It was a natural event. Sad but not a nightmare medical event.

So here I am now, over 2 1/2 years later and nearing the end of a full-term pregnancy again. I’m having normal BH Contractions, that’s Braxton Hicks, which are only uterus tune up contractions, not real labor contractions. They are frequent at times, some days more than others.

We are taking each day one at a time, and whenever it’s time, it’ll be time. I just need to get some STUFF done. I have to get the sheets and towels for birth time washed and dried and bagged up properly, and still have to buy a few things. We have to get our master bathroom scoured and get some bedroom stuff moved around and get through a ton of laundry and re-organize the dresser drawers to make room for baby stuff, diapers and clothing. We need to get the diaper changing pad to put on top of the dresser and a cover for it. That will have to wait until Friday.

I had written more, and published this post, and ran to the bathroom, and when I came back there was a page of mysql errors, and this post wasn’t on my weblog, and I pressed “back” and it was a blank write new post page … in drafts there was a version of the post, what’s above, but it wasn’t all of it, and I just am not up to “re-writing” anything, so this is where I’ll end!