PART 30, TRYING FOR ANOTHER BLOG SERIES
On Monday this week I went into Kaiser for a Non-Stress Test. The night before I didn't feel baby moving at all during my night of sleep. This has concerned me a couple of times before, but when I drank my coffee the following morning, and even some sparkling water, baby still didn’t wake up like it usually does. For the rest of the morning baby continued with very little movement- only about 4 times until 9:30 am. My doula advised me to go to Kaiser just in case, because it is very easy to do so.
So I called Labor & Delivery, and they had me go right into triage! They hooked up the monitors to measure my heart rate and the baby’s for 20 minutes. Problem was, they kept losing baby’s heart rate. The nurse changed out a cord, but it didn’t help. This also happened during Anders’ labor, so I don’t know if it’s a me thing or what. The nurse was perplexed, but also not concerned because she could hear that baby’s heart rate was fine, it just wasn’t recording properly. . After twenty minutes, the midwife on duty came in to chat with me and do an ultrasound. Everything looked great! Baby was still head down, placenta on top, and the midwife was very impressed with baby’s “practice breathing!” Go baby!
I came down with a stomach bug at the end of this week, which could have been an early stage of labor sign, but ended up not being. I couldn’t sleep because I was so nauseous at night, and having disgusting acid heartburn burps. The next day I felt nauseous and completely drained all day. It didn’t completely go away for two days. I forced myself to eat little bits because I was concerned about getting baby food, but I really had no appetite and all I wanted to do was lay around (but instead I was at my kids’ soccer tournament and games all weekend). Finally it subsided, and I was really glad because I did not want to go into labor feeling that weak.
During my bout of sickness, I had what I’d call my first pregnancy meltdown (which I’m actually impressed by, because I had had many by nine months with my previous pregnancies. The morning I woke up feeling sick, tired and was dealing with remnants of an argument with Luc from the night before. We were on our way to Julian’s soccer game and I started feeling so overwhelmed and I couldn’t stop the tears. I was overwhelmed by concern of trying to take care of this baby inside of me, never knowing for sure if the baby is ok, and if I’m doing the right thing or not. The constant weight of concern that comes with pregnancy just felt like too much at that point.
Eventually I told Luc that I also felt like I wished he considered how I felt more- this is a sentiment that has come up for me with each pregnancy. I know it’s impossible for him to understand what I’m going through, but sometimes I wish there was more interest, more concern, more consideration. And I imagine that this is a common complaint for pregnant moms, because it’s easy for a partner to forget/not think about the pregnancy, but for the pregnancy person it’s pretty much on your mind all the time. And for me, I feel like my husband is the one person that I really want to experience it with. I’m not very good at speaking up to command attention, so I guess it’s kind of my fault for not requesting more. But even sometimes when I ask my family members to put their hand on my belly to feel the baby move, I get a begrudging response. To me, it feels like it’s the least they can do to participate in the experience.
Anyways, Luc responded very kindly. He asked how I’d like him to respond to that, because initially he felt hurt. “How about, what can I do to make you feel more considered?” I suggested. And from there, we made amends. This has been a challenge in each of my pregnancies- this feeling of solitude during such a magnificent experience. I’m not sure what advice I would offer to myself, or someone like me, but maybe that’s part of why I’m writing this blog. I imagine the audience as my daughter/s reading this in the future, during their pregnancies, and maybe having an (imagined)audience to tell my story provides me comfort.
I had another meeting with my doula, Bee this week, where she did some body work on me. She did some “unwinding” of my hips, and release work of my uterus. Bee made her own guess for baby’s arrival: 10/8, Girl, 7.4 lbs, 20 inches. Here’s my guess: 10/10, Girl, 7.8 lbs, 20 inches. The average guess in the betting pool is 10/2, Equal Gender Guesses, 7.9 llbs, 20 inches. 10/2 would be this Sunday! I don’t feel like that’s going to happen, but you never know!!
I am SO EXCITED.
I haven’t done much exercising this week mostly because I’ve been recovering from that stomach bug that wiped me out (no, it wasn’t Covid). But it left me with very little energy. And the couple of times I tried to do a workout this week, I got taken down a few notches in my recovery. So, I’ve been laying low.
This was my last week of work! I finished on Friday, one week before my due date! And Friday I had three clients cancel, so I actually got to enjoy what felt like my first day of maternity leave, by lying around for a couple of hours watching Netflix crime docuseries.
Also on Friday, my friends surprised me with a baby shower! We were supposed to be meeting for dinner, and when I showed up there were more people there and presents, with a decorated table! They all are so sweet and I feel totally blessed to have them as friends. What a great group of women they are!
My birthday is on Monday (I’ll turn 39 when I’m 39 weeks preggo). And the full moon is on October 9th. When’s baby going to come?
I weigh 165 pounds, having gained about 38 pounds. The exact same as my other two pregnancies. I feel good about where my body is. I taught my last cardio kickboxing class at 37.5 weeks pregnant. And I'm eating pretty much all the ice cream I want right now.
This could be my last prenatal entry. But I will definitely be back to update with how things went once I’m on the other side.
