34 weeks and one day – less than 6 weeks to go!
I’m almost tired of the weekly ultrasounds. Not the ultrasounds themselves, because watching the baby is fascinating. Today Aurora played with the umbilical cord, got bored with it, and set it directly on her nose. I’m mostly tired of the guessing and the estimates and how it affects the future of my “high risk” care. Once a week, an ultrasound technician fires up the machine and measures her skull, her femur, and her abdomen then guesses how much she weighs. Then they compare these sizes to the “average” size of babies at her gestational age and tell me if she’s ahead or behind the curve. Her first measurement said she had a huge head at 32 weeks but now it seems less huge at 34 weeks, but I have a new tech who might measure differently. Her femur is measuring at a week ahead, but they use her abdomen to measure weight and they’re guessing she’s 6lbs 9oz, up from 5lbs 4oz last week. If she keeps this up for 6 weeks until her due date, I’ll have a 13lbs baby. Most estimates are high, usually off by 2lbs or so, and I’m not letting myself worry yet.
Unfortunately, this gives the medical team at the hospital grounds to use their scare tactics to freak me out. They’ve already whispered the word “induction” and made mention that they don’t “let” patients with gestational diabetes go past 39 weeks, but I’m armed with information and printouts, and I will be a very hard sell on medical intervention when my blood sugar has been under control. I am also incredibly grateful for my husband’s full support in everything, including telling the doctors that we are going to do this my way, and that means no unnecessary inductions or C-sections without a very damn good medical reason. I read a fascinating article about gestational diabetes and big babies on a website called Evidence Based Birth which has made me a lot more confident about keeping my medical decisions as MY medical decisions.
Aside from twice weekly medical appointments, the wonderful spouses at my husband’s office here on base are throwing me a small baby shower on the 4th of February, and I just received a virtual invitation to a webcam baby shower on the 19th of February with my dad’s side of the family. The lesson here is: don’t say “I won’t be having a baby shower because I live in the middle of nowhere with no friends” out loud or you’ll get three baby showers. We had one in November with my mom’s side of the family at Thanksgiving, too. I feel very loved!
