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Apr
19
Another Belated Update

I really am awful about updating this thing.  There isn’t a whole lot of “WOW! Exciting” to report.  It’s going.  The most exciting this is that I’m now 37 weeks, so I’m “allowed” to pop any time.

The 37 week mark was a mental huge deal for me, because it would be such a huge change to my care.  While a baby born at 36 weeks might be just fine and require no extra care, I would have been suddenly considered “high risk” and couldn’t deliver at the birth center.  Now that I’ve hit 37 weeks, I can head to the birth center, rather than straight to the hospital.

I’m definitely starting to feel the aches and pains of the last few weeks of pregnancy.  I did something to my back (or the baby bruised my liver, no unheard of), am starting to get pretty nasty pain in my right glute, generally feel uncomfortable in the belly, and she’s started to descend, providing that very strange “banging against the bottom of the pelvis, from the inside” sensation.  It could certainly be worse, however, and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t go to 42 weeks and have five weeks of this.

Prep wise, we’re pretty good.  There’s a bit more cleaning that Jason would like to have done, but we’ve got bags packed, baby room finished, all the vital essentials ready.  (Though we won’t set up the co-sleeper next to the bed until we get home from the birth center.  It’s tough getting in and out of bed with that thing there!)  We’ve got two classes left in the series of birth classes we’re taking; this Wednesday’s being “labor simulation”.  And I’ve got subs for all of my classes except one, and I’m in the process of training the teacher who’s going to take the last one (it’s a prenatal class, and she hasn’t yet done prenatal training.)

We met with our doula last weekend to chat, get to know each other better, walk around the house and see likely places to labor before going to the birth center.  And this weekend, she and I went to a partner prenatal workshop, which I was really grateful for, since it enabled us to work together – literally, hands-on – prior to labor, and allow me to get comfortable with that sort of close, intimate touch.  (Not that it won’t get more intimate during labor, but it’s a good start.)

People keep asking “are you excited?!!?!?!”.  Yes, you can hear the exclamation marks in their voices.  and I have to say, I can’t say I’m “EXCITED!!!!”.  I’m certainly looking forward to it – even the labor and childbirth process, but most of all getting to meet her.  But it feels like just the next appropriate step, the right thing to follow.  I’ve had nine months to contemplate this, and it’s hard to maintain that same drive of excitement that long.

So, offical T-minus three weeks and any day now.

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Jan
25
Almost to 3rd Trimester

Despite the lack of photographic evidence, I’m just about to the third trimester, at 26 weeks today.  And honestly, I won’t call the second trimester any sort of “honeymoon”.  It wasn’t awful, but pubic bone pain, continued fatigue, posture challenges, and a roller coaster appetite don’t make for a honeymoon.  I’m happy it was better than first trimester, but it’s its own separate “experience”.

The midwives have continued to be great.  After my next appointment, where I get to do the glucose tolerance test (oh boy, my hypoglycemia looks forward to that), I move to appointments every other week.  It think it’ll be nice to keep in closer contact with my midwives, but it’s a little freaky that they’re doing that because third trimester is when your risk of bad things happening goes up.  Ah well, the best I can do is stay healthy.

While I certainly feel baby girl kick every day, and for up to an hour at a time in the evenings, outside of that, I don’t feel particularly “pregnant”.  Certainly none of that “pregnant glow” or “euphoria”.  I feel… well, I feel like I’ve got a belly that belongs at the dinner table an hour after Thanksgiving dinner.  And I feel out of shape, and unable to get the exercise I really want to.  Talking to a number of other pregnant, or recently pregnant, women has helped me feel that I’m not alone in feeling “normal”.  Perhaps it’s hard to get excited because I don’t know what having a baby will be like, but that also makes it easier to be level headed about getting the nursery together.

Speaking of the nursery, we’ve got most things in there – crib, changing table (thanks to a gift from a friend), dressers (thanks to pillaging our guest room to use our old bedroom set furniture), a glider, and bookcases.  And, for the first weeks, while we “co-sleep” Jason has built a gorgeous co-sleeper that is designed specifically for our bed.  It looks fabulous, and I think it’ll work out really nicely for us.

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Nov
02
Score!

While there was a bit of a muffin fiasco this morning, I managed to get a good batch of muffins finished before we had to run off to today’s prenatal appointment. Things are going well, and I had oodles of questions to ask – sprinkled over the course of the entire appointment. We met with Val this time, and Suzanne (the student midwife) was there too. We liked both of them. All in all, my blood pressure is great (there, certainly – it seems to fluctuate a little more than it used to, but “high” is never even up to 120/80), the baby’s heart beat is good, I can have some green tea (moderation, of course), I can use the sauna (if it’s kept low – 95ish) when I’m cold, my weight gain is going to be unique to me and is fine as long as I’m eating to appetite, and sushi doesn’t have to be right out if we have a place we can trust*. All in all, a fabulous appointment.

After the appointment, Jason and I got to meet our friends five day old daughter – who is absolutely adorable! It gave us a chance to catch up with both of our friends’ moms too.

And the frosting on the evening? I made pizza tonight for dinner. It was gluten free pizza crust, and casein free soy cheese, but it was “pizza”, and I’m happy! 😛

*Why do I care so much about being able to eat raw fish while I’m pregnant? Because sushi is absolutely the only food that generally sounds *good*, the only food that I generally WANT. While there is lots of non-raw fish sushi that I love, and do eat, I need protein, and a negihama roll sounds really really good.

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Oct
29
Needles and Needle Results

I have half-completed my quest to be stuck with at least two more needles. As both a preggo and an asthmatic, I’m meet two qualifications for being high risk and for requiring the shot, rather than the nasal spray. But finding the vaccine has been a bit of a pain in the butt. I see a midwife at a birth center, so they don’t have the vaccine, so they refer me to my GP. My GP doesn’t have any of either type and isn’t expecting to get any in, so they refer me to the local health department. The local health department has suspended all public health clinic vaccinations due to lack of vaccine, so they refer me to my GP or OB. The OB group that is handling my ultrasounds hasn’t been able to get any for the workers and doubts that they’ll be able to get any in for patients, so they refer me to my GP. You may see the dilemma. To make matters worse, I’d like to find the single dose, since I’d prefer fewer preservatives.

Fortunately, Jason was able to able to find a local grocery pharmacy that had the seasonal flu vaccine in single dose. So that’s been accomplished. They don’t know that they’re going to get any H1N1 vaccine, however. The nurse at the maternal fetal medicine who returned my results suggested that Snohomish County might be running clinics this weekend. So I plan to trek about a 45-min drive north to Snohomish County to get the H1N1 vaccine there.

And yeah, those results were all good. Blood tests combined with the ultrasound puts me at very low risk for any detectable chromosomal abnormalities (1 in 11,000 for Downs and 1 in 22,000 for the other trisomies). Whoohoo!

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Oct
25
Ultrasounds

While the DVD we got from the ultrasound place was in a proprietary format, so I couldn’t take direct clips, I went old school and video’ed the clips playing on my monitor. 🙂

Enjoy!

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Oct
23
Worth the Wait

There hasn’t been a lot to report the past few weeks other than being nauseated every day and have headaches most of them as well. But today you get something worthwhile: an ultrasound report.

We headed to the maternal fetal center for the ultrasound and first blood test in the combitest. It tests for risk of Down Syndrome, a couple other trisomies, some severe abnormalities, and so on.

The center had a whole host of small little ultrasound rooms, with cute lighting that looked like stars on the ceiling. The sonographer came in after a little while, goo’ed up my belly, and began the wanding. We saw the little alien quite clearly right away, and it was positioned quite nicely to start taking measurements on nuchal transparency. The baby stayed mostly well positioned, but moved around a fair amount, stretching out, swinging limbs, and spinning on the axis of the spine.

The sonographer went on to measure blood flow around the bladder (which was pretty awesome to see), measured length, looked at the heartbeat (171bmp), checked arms and hands and legs and toes, looked at the nasal bridge, showed up all kinds of little bits. The ‘crown to rump’ length was 6.87cm, putting gestational age at 13.0 weeks, rather than the 12.5 weeks I ought to be, but ultrasounds aren’t exactly the most reliable at precision.

It was cool, but weird. I think that’s the operative work for most of this – weird. Since I don’t still feel pregnant outside of feeling sick.

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Oct
05
I’m Back!

I know I haven’t written in a while, but there hasn’t been much to write. I’ve continued to feel nauseated, headachy, and sleepy, albeit in lesser amounts, as always. It’s getting a little bit better, but that means that I finally was able to get to some laundry today, though not kitchen cleaning.

We had our first appointment at the birth center today. We went over medical history, opted for combined test for a couple of genetic things, and had a lot of trying to figure out “due dates” and “how far along I am”. (Apparently, they could backwards from the due date, and things get kinda screwy. We’ll manage it.)

And despite the fact that I’m only 10 weeks (9.5, by their measure), they gave the doppler a try. At first, we didn’t get anything, but within about 10 seconds, there was a very clear “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh” over the speaker. No picture, of course, since it was not a regular ultrasound, but still rather amazing. Freaking weird giggly amazing, at this point still.

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Sep
23
Quest Complete

Oh, well, I still have to turn it in, but we have completed our current quest to interview providers. (Yes, yes, blatant WoW reference. It just seemed appropriate.)

Today was the Puget Sound Midwifery and Birth Center, in Kirkland. They are two blocks away from Evergreen Hospital, which makes it even closer than the Eastside Birth Center is to their backup hospital. They operate three birthing rooms, shared by two sets of three midwives who work as a group. We had an interview with one of the three who would be in the group that I would be with, the Lake Washington Midwives. We saw Sunita, who is also a naturopathic doctor, so I’m not sure if she should have a Dr. in front of her name or not.

The facility was easy to get to, and inviting. They had a library of books on conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood/parenting in the waiting room – and I mean something like 15 (short) shelves of books. We did the ‘interview’ in one of the birthing suites, as they tend to do their prenatal appointments there. She had a very personable style, while answering questions, and went over most of the same stuff we’d been asking, sometimes answering questions before I even got to them. They have a low transfer rate, and most of their in-labor transfers are done for maternal exhaustion. They have a very low episiotomy rate, as well. She noted that they can do sterile water injections, but her experience is that they tend to be more irritating than painful, and she has been trained in TENS and uses it on occasion, but doesn’t use it often. Like the other birth center, when I asked about how they tend to manage coping with pain there, she pointed towards the tub (and they do birth in the tub as well). (Yes, “how do you, a birth center, manage pain and discomfort in labor” is a totally leading question trying to get at the mindset they have during the process, but that’s kind of the point of the interview.)

She was the first person who asked us, after she answered all of our questions, to tell her a little about ourselves. And she had a good hearty laugh (along with appropriate sarcastic response!) to Jason’s “Well, we tend to be pretty analytical people.” She even helped answer the “why are hospitals so anti-water birth”; her opinion being that it has a lot to do with provider convenience, since tub births are a little hard on them (hard tub sides and all) and there isn’t much in the way of visual access during one.

At the end of our visit, she showed us a little tour of the place. One of the birthing rooms was in use for a labor, and the other one was in use for an appointment, but the other provider (and patient) was fine with us checking in. Turned out to work perfectly, as the other midwife in the room was one of the other people on the team that I would see. And when we walked out into the hallway, I got to meet the third (who immediately said “wow, you look familiar” after I introduced myself). They all seemed quite friendly, and warm.

Really, that’s the impression I got from the whole place – a warm, inclusive welcome. Very homey, if not entirely in decoration (there’s only so much you can do with that who “homey hotely” setting), then very much in spirit.

This leaves me torn. I understand the “Oh! We have to be in a hospital because something could go horribly wrong and it’ll be awful if we’re not at a hospital” emotional reaction, but I also know that it is a primarily culturally ingrained irrational fear. There are certainly benefits to be had being in a hospital! But there are risks from every intervention, which is also closer at hand, and more likely to be used, in a hospital, not to mention just being able to be really comfortable and trusting of EVERYONE in the room.

I’m going to be sleeping on it, but I definitely have a preference in mind. 🙂

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Sep
19
Eight Weeks Pregnant, Four Weeks Nauseated

Eight weeks (gestation) today, five and a half weeks fetal age. And half of that (gestational age, anyway) has been spent feeling nauseated, tired, and unwell. I hope that it’s only another four weeks of this, ’cause I’d like it to be over.

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Sep
16
Evergreen Complete

Last night, we toured Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland (~20 min away), and did a meet-and-greet with the nurse-midwives who practice there today. Let’s just say that making this decision won’t be easy.

The guide who did the tour of Evergreen was a short, older lady with… the most annoying habit of talking in short sentences, making the last two words sound crucial, and talking slowly. And the way she talked to the little two or three year old that was with us… UGH! It made it a little hard to focus on the tour, but as Jason said – over time, you kinda warmed to her, or at least uncooled towards her. It was the first maternity ward I liked the layout of, oddly enough. The rooms were nice enough, had a decent amount of space, various supplemental birthing supplies (ball, squat bar, jacuzzi tub, rocking chair, even birthing stool, I think). She talked a fair amount about the support for natural childbirths, one-on-one nursing (they try to keep you with one single nurse during each shift), their openness to avoiding interventions if not warranted, and even talked about the vaccination waiver process. (I’m not planning on not vaccinating this kid; don’t worry. I’m not so fond of giving a DPT, Hep B, and Hep A vaccine all at once withing 24 hours of the stress of birth. While I have much more research to do on this front, I’m of a mind to try to space the three out over the first month or so. We’ll see.)

This morning, we met with one of the five nurse-midwives at the Center for Women’s Health at Evergreen (not to be confused with the Evergreen Women’s Health Center, aside from the fact I confuse them every single time). She was an interesting combination of very patient (we were there for 40 minutes, asking questions, after all), and medically efficient. It’s a combination that I think I like. I was disappointed to hear they don’t do vaginal breech delivery, as I’m a little annoyed at the reduced care available because people aren’t trained. (Seriously, lack of training and experience is the biggest reason breeches aren’t delivered vaginally. In *some* breech presentations, it’s not more risky to do a vaginal birth, if the provider is trained. But, no one trains them anymore. Sigh!) But I was pleased about the discussion over various methods of version in the case of a breech. And I was pleased with her response to my question on episiotomies, which was somewhat vague in the “depends significantly on the woman” but she discussed the other methods they use to avoid them focusing on giving the baby’s head plenty of time to do the stretching naturally, and finished by saying that in her 15 years of midwifery practice, she’s probably done about that many ‘routine’ episiotomies.

As an final irony, the assistant at the chiropractor’s office I go to mentioned that she used to work in the birth center that we’ll be interviewing at next week, and she thinks I would really like two of the midwives in the group of three I’m interviewing with. She doesn’t know the third, because she left before the new midwife came in, who also happens to be the person we’ll be interviewing with. And, she knew the midwife at the birth center we already interviewed, and suspects I’ll take to the other midwives better. Definitely a small world!

So, this all leaves me very uncertain where I want to give birth and who I want for a provider. Evergreen falls into the “acceptable” category, and Jason does like the immediate proximity to emergency facilities (though I’d add that the other birth center is literally two blocks from the maternity center). The main differences are the environment – can I find myself just as relaxed in a hospital? – and only the birth centers offer water birth. And when it comes down to these two relatively small differences (as far as I know now, without having given birth, anyway), I suspect it will strongly come down to who do I mesh the best with.

The decision has gotten difficult!

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