This week is my 14th week of bed rest. And the 32nd week of this pregnancy. It's also already the middle of August and we have so much planning and preparation still to do! This third trimester really snuck up on us - back at 18 weeks when I was taken off work and put on bed rest it seemed like the fall would never get here. But today I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and the air conditioning is off, with a nice breeze blowing through the house. So I am feeling more and more like fall is just around the corner (although I'm sure we're still in for many more days of sweltering heat yet this summer, as it is still August in Michigan).
At today's appointment with Dr. Murphy (the maternal/fetal specialist) I was really hoping for some reassurance that my level of activity in the last month hasn't changed anything in terms of, well, my cervix. Turns out that after 30 weeks, they don't even measure cervical length (talk about a weird thing to be disappointed about - most people probably don't actually want that particular kind of invasive ultrasound). Mostly because it's hard to get an accurate measurement at this point, but also because even if it was looking like I was at risk for going into labor - at this point there's not much they would do other than send me home and keep me on bed rest, which is what I'm doing anyway.
Baby girl looked great today, though. Everything is measuring perfectly - she weighs about 4 1/2 pounds and heart rate and all bone/head/heart measurements were right on track. Which is always nice to hear. The bad news is that she's getting so big that I can absolutely no longer lie on my back. I nearly passed out again during the ultrasound due to her compressing that big vena cava vein and cutting off my circulation to the point of sweating, light-headed dizziness. Fun. But Jori the tech was, as always, really great and did the rest of the ultrasound with me laying on my side with a damp cloth on my forehead, and everything was fine. Here's a 3D photo of today's scan. I seriously hope she grows into that McMillan nose.
If you're not used to looking at 3D images of babies in the womb (apparently this is not something most people see as regularly as we do) what you're looking at is the baby's face on the top half with her little hand sideways across her mouth and the bottom of her face. She refused to move that hand for the few minutes we were trying to get a photo, so this was the best we could do.
I was glad to hear that Dr. Murphy wasn't super concerned about the lower back pain and cramping I've had off and on (mostly Tuesday night and Wednesday morning). But she did very clearly tell me that if it comes back and lasts for more than 2 hours to go to Labor and Delivery to be checked out. So we will be keeping an eye on that.
I also now officially have an appointment, exactly 4 weeks from today, to get the cerclage removed! I am both thrilled and terrified at the prospect. Thrilled because it means we're that much closer to meeting this baby girl, and terrified because of the off chance that it could mean another epidural and OR procedure. Turns out most of the time it can be done outpatient with a couple hours of monitoring afterwards (she described it as usually feeling like a REALLY uncomfortable pap smear). But sometimes tissue can grow around the stitch, making it impossible to easily remove, requiring the whole epidural, all-day in the hospital, operational-procedure-gig to get it out. Lord. I do NOT want to go through that again. Is it bad that I'm more afraid of that than labor? Cause I am.
In the meantime I am making lots of lists. A list for my brother of all the baby things I've lent him for his son that I'm going to need back. A list for some resale or mom-to-mom shopping once the stitch comes out. A list for Babies R Us for those items that you just need NEW when you have a new baby. And the ever-growing list of things I'd ideally like to have done around here before the baby arrives. Eric is checking off one right now by getting the first coat of paint in the kitchen. Fingers crossed we can crank out painting our room and bathroom upstairs within the next month so we can actually move into our room before baby gets here!
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