Thirty-three

That's how many weeks pregnant I am as of today. I can hardly believe it. Though TheGoodDoc had 32 weeks as her big milestone for me, I always thought of 33 as the real turning point, right from the beginning. I thought there was a nice symmetry to it--the end of the year, the easing of anxiety; the fresh start, the slow exhalation of relief. Three months ago, 33 weeks seemed impossibly far away--impossible that my misbehaving uterus could manage to hold on to Bat Girl for that much longer. Now, I'm greedy enough to believe, not only that I will be bringing a real live baby home, but that I can actually make it to 38 weeks. Where did all this optimism come from?

Coincidentally, as of yesterday, 33 is also the number of years I have now been alive. I celebrated my birthday by cheating on bedrest and going out to see Dre@mg!rls (very entertaining, I highly recommend it) with my husband. I figured it was no more strenuous than going out to dinner, which I've done a couple of times, or to work, which I am allowed to do once a week. We took a cab there and back, and the old ute behaved pretty well during the movie, but I paid for it when I got home with a major contract-o-rama: every five minutes for an hour, then every 10 minutes for another hour, then every five minutes again, then finally settling down to the usual 15-20 minute intervals after three hours on the couch. I know I've been playing with fire--I have stern instructions to call the doctor if I have 5 or more contractions an hour for two hours--but things always seem to calm down eventually. I just hope that I don't get so casual about it that I don't realize when I'm actually going into labor.

Anyway, the rest of my birthday was spent guzzling water to help the contractions settle down, dozing off in front of the D!sc0very Ch@nnel, and eating takeout Indian food, as well as fielding birthday phone calls from a few well-meaning friends who seem to have not quite absorbed the meaning of bedrest: "Are you doing anything exciting for your birthday?" But truly, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

You'd think that with my birthday falling right before New Year's, I'd be all about the resolutions--new year for me as well as the calendar and all that. But I've always sucked at making resolutions and taking stock. As I look ahead to 2007, my 34th year, all I can hope for is a healthy baby and the strength to be the best mother I can be. (Yes, it's starting to sink in: I'm going to be a mother.) That's quite enough, I think.

Happy new year to all of you. May 2007 bring you everything you're dreaming of.

Update: 32w2d

Well, the big news from today's OB appointment is that Bat Girl is still stubbornly breech (which I knew based on the continuing kicks to the groin I've been receiving). I've been scheduled for a C-section February 5 at 8:30 am. (That's 2 weeks before my due date, for anyone keeping track, and just 6 weeks from now. Yikes!) TheGoodDoc says that it's highly unlikely that the baby will flip at this point, but if she does, we can always cancel the c/s and go for a vaginal birth.

I'd been feeling pretty lousy this past week--lots more contractions and more pain with each contraction, weird painful twinges in my lower abdomen, my groin and hip muscles and joints getting all loosey-goosey (it literally feels like I've pulled both groin muscles), rectal pressure, etc.--so even though my cervix is still firmly closed, TheGoodDoc wants to see me again in another week. She's also sending me for another scan at the hospital to check the baby's growth (I'm measuring small for dates) and fluid levels.

Unfortunately, I don't get to increase my activity level like I thought I would get to at this point. Because of all the contractions (which I think may have had something to do with stress of having my parents staying with me for FOUR DAYS), I'm to maintain the same restrictions until the magical 35 week mark. Thirty-five weeks is also the point at which, TheGoodDoc says, if I go into labor they will not try to stop it. That's only three weeks away, y'all.

Strangely, I feel relieved. I'm sure once I start really thinking about the implications of a C-section I'll be terrified, but at this point it's actually nice to have a small element of certainty introduced into the mix. Yes, Bat Girl may still decide to arrive earlier than scheduled, but at least now I can make some firm plans about my maternity leave (I felt so up in the air about it, knowing that there was little chance I'd make it to my 2/18 due date but not knowing how close I'd get), my husband taking time off work, scheduling a post-partum doula, etc. I can cancel my childbirth classes and not worry that I'll give birth before I get a chance to take them. I have a target date by which to get the remaining baby supplies I need.

I just need to not focus on phrases like "low fluid" and "major abdominal surgery" and I'll be fine.

What is there to say?

Too much sad news this week.

But also some good news.

*****

I'll be away from blogs and blogging until after Christmas. (My parents are coming to town, and I CANNOT blog with them in the house.) But I promise to update you after my OB appointment next Tuesday. I will be 32 weeks on Christmas Eve. I can't believe it.

Have very happy holidays, all of you.

Further adventures of a wacky womb

I just realized that I double-posted my last post. Totally annoying. Sorry.

Thanks for all your thoughts re: flu shots. My OB was no help whatsoever. She said that ACOG recommends that all pregnant women get one and that she strongly encourages all her patients to do so. "We had a pregnant woman die of the flu a few years ago," she said, ever the optimist. But when I tried to pin her down on the whole thimerosal issue, she said she hadn't done the research on the topic so couldn't make a firm recommendation. Argh! I think I'll ask my dad for a final opinion, but considering he's one of those super old-school doctors who prescribes antibiotics at the drop of a hat, he'll probably say I should get one.

I'm leaning toward getting it. I liked Robbie's take, looking at overall mercury consumption. I haven't eaten tuna (well, maybe two bites total) since 2003 and am super neurotic about mercury content in fish in general--and frankly, have not really been able to stomach much seafood at all this whole pregnancy--so I'm guessing my overall body burden may be below average.

What it really comes down to is control. There are so many big things with this pregnancy that I can't control, that I'm spending a lot of time worrying about the small things I can control--organic food, vinyl in baby products, etc. (Yes, I've become one of Those People--total freak about plastic. On my budget, though, it seems to be a losing battle. Vinyl is in or on EVERYTHING.) But at the end of the day, I can't control anything. Nothing I do will guarantee that my baby will be healthy and happy and prosperous forever. I can only do the best I can--and it's impossible to know, beyond the basics (like, I don't binge drink or mainline heroin or starve myself), what is really important in the end.

My flu shot appointment is next Wednesday, so I have another week to decide.

***

I started out this post intending to tell you a little about what it's like being 30 weeks pregnant with a unicornuate uterus. I seem to have largely sidestepped the visible lopsidedness that Y has experienced. When I lie down flat, you can tell the baby is mostly on the right, especially when I'm having a contraction, but I'm mostly even-looking otherwise.

The lower part of my uterus has expanded to the left side, as evidenced by all the kicking I feel near my left groin. But above the belly button, it's all on the right. The top half of my uterus extends, like a big bloated banana, from just right of my belly button (where I think Bat Girl's head is) to up under my ribcage far to the right, above my right kidney. (During a contraction, you can see the banana-shape quite clearly standing out from my body.) It goes so far to the right that when I lie on my right side, I can actually feel the top of my uterus pressing into the mattress, especially during a contraction. And I need no propping up with pillows, as the bulk of my uterus rests directly on the mattress. Lying on my left side is nearly impossible--even bolstered with pillows, my uterus almost immediately contracts from (I think) the strain of flopping over to the left.

It's pretty freaky, I have to say. I wonder what it's like for women with UU who are pregnant but undiagnosed--do all the weird shapes and odd angles confuse them?

***

I've started looking for a post-partum doula. Initially I had thought to spend the money on a labor doula and rely on friends and family for help during the post-partum period, but given that I have at least a 50 percent chance of having a C-section, and that my friends and family have proven to be not so helpful during this bedrest period, I've changed strategies. Also, my mom offered to pay for us to hire someone for a month, as her new-baby present, "since I can't come be with you for a month." (She still works, so can only spare a week to come visit and help out after the baby is born.) Of course, if my mother actually did come stay with me for a whole month, one of us--her, me or my husband--would not make it out alive. But we won't tell her that.

In which I completely lose all motivation

To work, that is. Ordinarily, I love my job (that's because I have the Best Job in the World (TM)), but I am so over it right now. Perhaps that's because I am on bed rest and yet still shouldering a workload twice that of anyone else at my seniority level? A workload, I might add, that I am sadly failing to keep up with. I am going to have to swallow my pride and let go of this stubborn need to prove that "pregnancy won't slow me down!" (because, let's face it, I can't get much slower) and just ask to have my workload reduced.

However, it's not that I can't do the work, to be honest. It's that I don't want to. I would much rather spend my days on crazy nesting projects such as researching how to recycle the flatbed scanner we don't use anymore or transferring all the baby clothes we've received as gifts from one shopping bag to another in a futile attempt to organize something. See, since I can't actually do any real nesting, like buying furniture or rearranging the baby's room (still my office, and we have no idea where we're going to move all the office crap to) or doing laundry, I have to channel the nesting energy into bizarrely detailed projects like researching all-natural laundry detergents or obsessing about getting a flu shot.

Speaking of which, here's a WWYD? question for you all. Let me preface this by saying that I am 100% pro-immunization and intend to have my baby immunized on schedule, and that I normally get a flu shot every year (except that one year where there was a shortage). My OB doesn't offer flu shots, but urged me to get one if I had some other place I could. As it turns out, I can get one through work, so after much back-and-forth, I arranged to get one later this month. Up until now, I had pooh-poohed all the "FLU SHOTS WILL WRECK YOUR BABY!" hysteria. The CDC and my OB say it's OK, that's good enough for me. But just out of curiosity, I asked if the flu shots they give at work contain thimerosal. And what do you know, they do. So, because I have too much time on my hands, I'm now obsessing about it. To flu shot or not to flu shot? All the books and websites say that the amount of mercury in the flu shot hasn't been shown to cause any harm to the fetus, but "if you're worried, ask about getting a thimerosal-free shot instead." Which doesn't really help me, since I am physically unable to chase all over town looking for one. The chances of my getting the flu are probably slim, since my husband had a flu shot and since I have few visitors. But I will be having my baby smack in the peak of flu season, so there is some reason to be concerned. So, what would you do?

Other stuff...so, the baby shower happened last weekend. It was really nice, though too short. It started at 12:30 and people had to start leaving by 2:45 to catch trains and such, and I will admit that I was having such a good time seeing my friends that I was a little hurt that they didn't want to stay all afternoon. But, I guess people have their own lives and I was happy that they put together something at all.

As I mentioned in my last post, I ended up inviting my friend to stay with me after all. And it was fine. She wasn't quite as helpful as she hoped to be--for one thing, it turns out she really can't cook at all, and at one point I found myself standing in the kitchen showing her how to BOIL WATER FOR PASTA--but she tried really hard, and she brought chocolates and trashy magazines and we had a chance to catch up. Though it seems that an unfortunate side effect of all my solitude is that after a few hours, I really don't want to hear another person talking anymore, and my dear friend is apparently incapable of sitting in silence.

I managed to contain the cranky fairly well, though, i think, and only snapped once or twice. The major snapping incident was when I was confiding about how hard this pregnancy has been for me, and how uncomfortable I've been, and my friend, try as she might, couldn't seem to say the right thing. It's not her fault--she doesn't have any experience with any pregnancy or infertility related issues, and we all know that there are times when no one but our fellow bloggers knows the right thing to say, no matter how well-meaning they are. But she would say things like, "But, I don't understand, what's made this so unusually hard for you? Because isn't every pregnant woman uncomfortable at some point?" and I would have to be like, DUH, the fucking bedrest and related scariness and social isolation and you try having 60-second contractions every 20 minutes for three months and see how you like it.

Or, she would try to make me see the bright side with things like, "Oh, but I'm sure you're really enjoying the good parts, right?" and I would have to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "What good parts?" Because, I don't want to seem ungrateful, truly I don't. I am grateful that I am pregnant, especially when so many of you, who I care about so much, are still struggling. And I'm unbelievably grateful that it's starting to look like I might actually have a real baby at the end of all this. But I don't think it's a betrayal of that gratitude to be honest about the fact that this pregnancy has been a real struggle and that a lot of the time, the sucky parts really outweigh the good parts (which, I'm not even sure what the good parts are--feeling the baby move and seeing her on ultrasound, I guess). In the end, getting the take-home baby will outweigh all of the suckiness by far, but that doesn't cancel out the fact that right now is often hard and sad and uncomfortable and lonely. And I refuse to pretend that it's not.

I do my best not to frighten the pollyanna, pregnant-woman-as-precious-vessel people like my friend, who ask me if I'm "journaling" and "treasuring this time"--but come on, even if I weren't having a hard pregnancy, that is so not my personality, to write letters to my unborn child and have soft-focus professional belly shots taken. Call me Mama Crankypants, I guess.

In which I completely lose all motivation

To work, that is. Ordinarily, I love my job (that's because I have the Best Job in the World (TM)), but I am so over it right now. Perhaps that's because I am on bed rest and yet still shouldering a workload twice that of anyone else at my seniority level? A workload, I might add, that I am sadly failing to keep up with. I am going to have to swallow my pride and let go of this stubborn need to prove that "pregnancy won't slow me down!" (because, let's face it, I can't get much slower) and just ask to have my workload reduced.

However, it's not that I can't do the work, to be honest. It's that I don't want to. I would much rather spend my days on crazy nesting projects such as researching how to recycle the flatbed scanner we don't use anymore or transferring all the baby clothes we've received as gifts from one shopping bag to another in a futile attempt to organize something. See, since I can't actually do any real nesting, like buying furniture or rearranging the baby's room (still my office, and we have no idea where we're going to move all the office crap to) or doing laundry, I have to channel the nesting energy into bizarrely detailed projects like researching all-natural laundry detergents or obsessing about getting a flu shot.

Speaking of which, here's a WWYD? question for you all. Let me preface this by saying that I am 100% pro-immunization and intend to have my baby immunized on schedule, and that I normally get a flu shot every year (except that one year where there was a shortage). My OB doesn't offer flu shots, but urged me to get one if I had some other place I could. As it turns out, I can get one through work, so after much back-and-forth, I arranged to get one later this month. Up until now, I had pooh-poohed all the "FLU SHOTS WILL WRECK YOUR BABY!" hysteria. The CDC and my OB say it's OK, that's good enough for me. But just out of curiosity, I asked if the flu shots they give at work contain thimerosal. And what do you know, they do. So, because I have too much time on my hands, I'm now obsessing about it. To flu shot or not to flu shot? All the books and websites say that the amount of mercury in the flu shot hasn't been shown to cause any harm to the fetus, but "if you're worried, ask about getting a thimerosal-free shot instead." Which doesn't really help me, since I am physically unable to chase all over town looking for one. The chances of my getting the flu are probably slim, since my husband had a flu shot and since I have few visitors. But I will be having my baby smack in the peak of flu season, so there is some reason to be concerned. So, what would you do?

Other stuff...so, the baby shower happened last weekend. It was really nice, though too short. It started at 12:30 and people had to start leaving by 2:45 to catch trains and such, and I will admit that I was having such a good time seeing my friends that I was a little hurt that they didn't want to stay all afternoon. But, I guess people have their own lives and I was happy that they put together something at all.

As I mentioned in my last post, I ended up inviting my friend to stay with me after all. And it was fine. She wasn't quite as helpful as she hoped to be--for one thing, it turns out she really can't cook at all, and at one point I found myself standing in the kitchen showing her how to BOIL WATER FOR PASTA--but she tried really hard, and she brought chocolates and trashy magazines and we had a chance to catch up. Though it seems that an unfortunate side effect of all my solitude is that after a few hours, I really don't want to hear another person talking anymore, and my dear friend is apparently incapable of sitting in silence.

I managed to contain the cranky fairly well, though, i think, and only snapped once or twice. The major snapping incident was when I was confiding about how hard this pregnancy has been for me, and how uncomfortable I've been, and my friend, try as she might, couldn't seem to say the right thing. It's not her fault--she doesn't have any experience with any pregnancy or infertility related issues, and we all know that there are times when no one but our fellow bloggers knows the right thing to say, no matter how well-meaning they are. But she would say things like, "But, I don't understand, what's made this so unusually hard for you? Because isn't every pregnant woman uncomfortable at some point?" and I would have to be like, DUH, the fucking bedrest and related scariness and social isolation and you try having 60-second contractions every 20 minutes for three months and see how you like it.

Or, she would try to make me see the bright side with things like, "Oh, but I'm sure you're really enjoying the good parts, right?" and I would have to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "What good parts?" Because, I don't want to seem ungrateful, truly I don't. I am grateful that I am pregnant, especially when so many of you, who I care about so much, are still struggling. And I'm unbelievably grateful that it's starting to look like I might actually have a real baby at the end of all this. But I don't think it's a betrayal of that gratitude to be honest about the fact that this pregnancy has been a real struggle and that a lot of the time, the sucky parts really outweigh the good parts (which, I'm not even sure what the good parts are--feeling the baby move and seeing her on ultrasound, I guess). In the end, getting the take-home baby will outweigh all of the suckiness by far, but that doesn't cancel out the fact that right now is often hard and sad and uncomfortable and lonely. And I refuse to pretend that it's not.

I do my best not to frighten the pollyanna, pregnant-woman-as-precious-vessel people like my friend, who ask me if I'm "journaling" and "treasuring this time"--but come on, even if I weren't having a hard pregnancy, that is so not my personality, to write letters to my unborn child and have soft-focus professional belly shots taken. Call me Mama Crankypants, I guess.

29w2d

At today's OB appointment, my cervix was apparently so beautifully long, so firmly closed on manual exam that TheGoodDoc did not even bother to do a cootercam measurement. And she threw away the fFN culture she took before the manual exam, saying we didn't need to send it to the lab. Can you believe it?

Bat Girl is still breech, and TheGoodDoc said that while it's still early, if she doesn't flip around, there's a possibility I might have to have a C-section. (She said with the last UU patient she had, the baby was breech and had low fluid and so had to be delivered via section.) We talked about birthing classes a bit--the one I'm signed up for runs from my 35th to 37th weeks, which concerns me a little given that I may not even make it to 35 weeks, let alone 37 weeks, but she said that was fine. She told me the place I'm taking the classes (not the hospital) is "a little lefty" but that she's happy to deliver me any way I want, provided I don't need a C-section. At this point, though, I'm not particularly wedded to any idea of birth other than getting the baby out alive and healthy, and I told her as much.

The big news, at least for me, was my weight. As of my last appointment (at 27 weeks), I had only gained 12 pounds total this pregnancy. TheGoodDoc was totally unconcerned about my weight gain, but considering I started this pregnancy underweight for my height, and at my first prenatal appointment was told I could stand to gain as much as 45 pounds, I was a little concerned. I know plenty of women put on the bulk of their weight in the last trimester, but seeing as how I'm not sure how far into the third trimester I'll actually get, I really was hoping to gain a bit more quickly, for Bat Girl's sake.

I guess all the extra sesame bagels, nut butters, fruit juice, cheese, etc., I've been chowing down on worked--today I weighed in at eight pounds more than last time, for a total of 20 pounds--fairly respectable for 29 weeks. I'm not loving the sudden huge jump, but TheGoodDoc said it was okay. I'm pretty pleased, though I'd prefer not to continue gaining 4 pounds a week from here on out.

My doctor will be on vacation two weeks from now, so my next appointment is in three weeks. At which point I will be 32 weeks pregnant. Holy crap.

In other news, I had my baby shower this past weekend, which was lovely. And I bit the bullet and asked my friend to stay with me, which ended up being much better than I had feared. Lots to say about both of those things, but I'll save it for a post later this week.

Guess that sex ban is in place for a reason

Last week, I had a sex dream--can't remember the details, but that's not important. What's important is that as the dream concluded and I drifted half-awake, I had an in-my-sleep orgasm. (I had a LOT of dreamgasms in my first trimester, but haven't had any for a while, perhaps because I have been clamping down very hard on sex thoughts so as to make my current enforced celibacy more bearable. Remember, I haven't had sex since the night of my trigger shot, in late MAY.)

The dreamgasm was immediately followed by a GIGANTIC, insanely painful, minutes-long contraction, which woke me up and actually made me cry out in pain. The worst contraction I have ever experienced, in my 14 weeks of contraction craziness.

So I guess my doctor wasn't overreacting when she told me I can't have sex until I reach full-term.