Counting the hours until we meet

Yes, I'm still pregnant. Thanks for asking. It's been a bit of an emotional day for me as I really didn't want to have to walk back into the doctor's office with a baby still on the inside versus outside of me. I had been given the approval to go to my due date (which is Tuesday officially, so I still have a few hours) but no one was quite sure if I'd be allowed to go past it.

I brought Rich with me for moral support. I'm not sure if I have a note in my chart now (WARNING: May burst into tears! Ixnay mentioning the ueday ateday!) or if bringing the 6'5" dude with me helped, but everyone there was super nice to me and treated me with kid gloves.

Baby boy has a great heart rate, plenty of amniotic fluid, good movements, lots of hiccups and a mommy with stellar blood pressure (seriously - 120/77). But he still hasn't made any motions to come out quite yet.

I'm still 80% effaced and 1cm dilated but not much more than that. The baby has dropped quite a bit, though, so all those squats have been helping. Dr. D did a bit more "encouraging" of my cervix to dilate so we'll see what happens.

My OB obviously has been rooting for me to go into labor on my own this past week. And she obviously is doing everything she can to give me the birth I want without chemicals or surgery. But the longer he stays in there, the larger he gets and the more concerned she gets.

I've been given the go ahead to stay pregnant for another week until my appointment next Monday. If at that point he hasn't dropped significantly more, I'm not more dilated and we still don't have a baby in our arms, we will cross the bridge on what to do next. I'm hoping that isn't the bridge to Cesarean Mountain without at least trying over the one to Induction Valley, but I'm trying not to think about that yet and focus on the seven days I have before then.

So light a candle, say a prayer, sacrifice a chicken, spit over your shoulder or do whatever else you can to convince our son he wants to come out this week. Rich and I are doing our parts as Operation Squat, Walk and Screw continues apace. Wish us all luck!

You've come a long way baby

Ever since my ultrasound on Thursday I've been dreading my doctor's appointments today. Thursday's ultrasound brought the news that they estimate our baby boy at 8lb 10oz and that started the hen clucking of when they were going to induce me. If it hasn't been obvious to this point I really really really don't want to be induced if I can avoid it, so all this idle chatter about bringing on interventions I don't has been stressing me out. I went for my nonstress test this afternoon and baby boy performed marvelously as expected, wiggly around on cue and showing a great heart rate and fluids. As I got up from the nonstress test to head to my ultrasound, Cathy the fetal diagnostic nurse asked how big my baby measured last week.

Me: "8lb. 10oz." Cathy (looking at me seriously): "Uh huh. And when is he scheduled to show up?" Me: "When he's ready." Cathy (looking even more serious): "Uh huh ..."

We walked back to the ultrasound area for her to check my amniotic fluid. The entire time she measured my belly she just kept talking about how these things can be so unpredictable and how she's seen patients that everything looks great and the next day the placenta just gives up and it's a crisis. She said she's even seen one or two patients whose babies didn't make it to the c-section scheduled date. Sigh. I just nodded my head and told her I'd talk to Dr. D and see what she had to say. Cathy seemed convinced I would get an induction date at my visit today. I thanked her for her concern and told her I'd probably just see her again on Thursday.

As I walked from the hospital over to the doctor's office for my visit, Cathy's comments started to get to me. As I sat in the waiting room, I was only partially successful in fighting back tears.

They called me back to take my weight (211), blood pressure (115/74) and check for proteins (negative). They checked the baby's heart rate again to record it and I sat in the room waiting to see the doctor. After a bit, the diabetes educator I don't mind so much, Georgia, showed up to look at my blood sugars for the week. She was very nice and told me she wasn't going to change anything because I had already taken care of it all. But once she finished and was flipping through her notes she mentioned that she thought Dr. D was going to give me a date today. "I've been wrong before, but you're at 39 weeks and I think she's not going to let you go any farther. So we'll see what she says. But I'll be surprised if we see you next week for an appointment. She'll probably give you a date before then."

She then packed up her stuff and walked out while I sat in the exam room by myself and was even less successful in fighting back tears. My face was hot as I listened to Dr. D. out in the hall talking to another doctor about something else. I just kept trying to keep the tears in check so I could have a rational conversation with her, but all I could think about was all these people with very strong opinions that they were going to pick a date for me and not allow me to be pregnant anymore. It was distressing to say the least.

Eventually Dr. D walked in with Georgia in tow and asked how I was feeling. I gave some lame statement of doing okay and she said I looked a little flushed. That's when I told her I was trying to keep my shit together but was having a hard time.

Dr. D: "Why are you having a hard time?" Me (choking up): "Because everyone today keeps telling me they're going to take my baby and I just want him to come on his own." Dr. D: "Nonono! Nobody's going to take your baby! You're the doula woman. You're doing fine! Who told you they were going to take your baby?" Me: "Well, you know Cathy ... she's great, but she's kind of a spaz and she just kept telling me all this stuff about how my baby could get worse any second now and no one will want to risk it and everyone keeps telling me you're going to make me induce this week." Dr. D: "Ugh, you know Cathy didn't mean anything by it, but I'm sorry you had to hear all that. We're not going to make any decisions like that quite yet. You just have a big baby so we need to figure out what we want to do." Me: "I know. Everybody means well, but I'm just very pregnant right now and I just really want the chance to do this my way. I feel like the only woman in this office begging to stay pregnant at 39 weeks."

Dr. D then asked if I wanted her to "check me" or if I wanted to wait a week. It was totally up to me. I paused for a second and told her I wanted to know because I was curious and hopefully it would give us some more information to work with. She said she was curious too and agreed it would give us some more info to digest before we made any decisions. As she walked out to get her stuff ready, Georgia walked over with huge eyes and told me, "I'm so sorry, I never meant to upset you! I just was guessing what Dr. D would say based on your date." I smiled at her and told her that it was okay and I wasn't mad at her, I was just very pregnant and very sensitive to all this. She apologized another half dozen times and then backed out of the room.

Dr. D came back and first sat down with me to talk about the statistics we know. We know I probably have a large baby. We know that the bigger he gets, the harder he will be to delivery vaginally. But we also know I'm not a small person and that both Rich and I were large babies so this little guy is probably genetically large and not large because of the diabetes. There's a 20% chance that a large baby could have a problematic delivery because of his broad shoulders. And that of those 20% there's only a 5% chance that any of those would suffer any ill effects from it, but we would all hate for this baby to be part of that statistic if it's avoidable. We just have to weigh the factors.

Then she checked my cervix. I'm about 80% effaced/softened (hooray!) and about 1cm dilated. She could get her finger past my cervix and feel his head but he wasn't so engaged in my pelvis that she couldn't push him away. She'd like him to be a little lower and engaged in my pelvis but otherwise this is all very promising. My cervix is very soft and ready to dilate, I'm having contractions off and on and he's not too high. We just have to encourage him down and out.

She asked if she could try to work my cervix loose a bit and I agreed. As she wiggled around for a bit she suddenly said, "Wow, you're a real trooper. I can't tell you how many women would have jumped off this table or yelled at me by now." It really wasn't that bad, but it's encouraging to know that I've got a higher tolerance for discomfort than other women (something I kind of suspected anyways).

Dr. D asked if I had been doing my squats. I told her yeah, but not daily. She told me to go home and squat as much as I could. She even got down and leaned over her examination stool to show me how and give me tips.

Then she told me that she thinks I'm going to have this baby on my own this week. She told me that she thinks I can have him vaginally and I'll do just fine. But if not, we'll just see how far he's progressed by next Monday and go from there.

So while everyone else there is exhausting, I am more and more pleased with Dr. D. I truly believe she's going to work with me and help me do this my way.

I still had a good cry in the car on the way home. Then I called my doula and had a great talk with her. Rich and I went for a great big walk, had dinner and sexy time and I'm currently squatting for all I'm worth. Everyone is doing everything in their power to encourage this baby to not be late.

Labor of love

Rich and I got home this evening, but both of us forgot to turn off the alarm. About 30 seconds later, I was standing six inches in front of the alarm looking for something in my purse when the siren went off. I screamed, typed in the four digit code to disable it and promptly burst into tears. Rich wrapped himself around me, stroking my hair and saying "shh, kitten, it's okay now" for several minutes before I calmed down.

After all that excitement, the baby was jumping all over the place as my body processed this dump of adrenalin. I curled up in my recliner (which has fast become my favorite piece of furniture ever made - I understand those who wish to be buried in theirs), put on my headphones and nestled down with my iPod to try to mellow out.

And thus my labor mix got its first trial run. I call it a success since it led to a two hour nap in the chair this evening.

Jeremy's mother said she listened to The Band's Music from Big Pink all during her pregnancy with him. Every time I hear The Weight, I think of her in a rocking chair at the farm house with him in her belly.

For your listening pleasure, I offer a sampling of my labor mix. Hopefully it will mellow you out as much as it does me. Because I picked most of these songs for very specific reasons, I'm including a little blurb about them below. But you can also just listen to them all for yourself on the OpenTape Mix - Labor of Love.

Here We Go Again - I listen to a lot of Soul Town on Sirius these days and so many of the songs please me. I imagine that each time a contraction starts up again, I'll hear Ray Charles in my head.

Can't Go Back Now - If you listen to no other song in this mix, please listen to this one. The Weepies are one of my favorite bands. Rich says the lyrics are depressing, but I like how they manage to make crappy things sound pleasant. "I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else, but in the end the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself."

We'll Be Fine - "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine."

More Time - "Please don't worry now, it will turn around. I need more time. Just a few more months and I'll be fine."

The One Thing I Know - I had a hard time picking which Christine Kane song I wanted. But the refrain is really comforting to me.

Beautiful World - "I like to go out beyond the white breakers, where a man can still be free (or a woman if you are one)."

Into the Mystic - This was my de facto "shitty day" song to make me feel better for several months. And who wouldn't want their gypsy soul rocked?

Down in the Valley to Pray - Doc Watson's voice is wonderful. And this old gospel just could play on repeat in my head for hours and I'd be fine with that. "Come on mothers let's go down in the valley to pray."

The Lucky One - This song used to seem a little bitter to me once, but now I just see it as a light-hearted anthem. "Everything's gonna be alright 'cause you're the lucky one."

Danny's Song - "He will be like him and me, free as a dove. Conceived in love. The sun is gonna shine above."

Let It Be - This is Rich's favorite Beatles song. And this is my favorite cover of it. It's hard not to rally once you get to the second half of it.

April Come She Will - I have no cosmic reason for this song other than it pleases me.

Just Like Heaven - This is about the point I started falling asleep in the chair. When she says "you're just like a dream" I can't help but smile.

Homeless - "Somebody say huh ee huh ee huh ee." That just pleases me.

If you Want to Sing Out, Sing Out - I love Cat Stevens and this is just such a happy song. I can imagine I might want to sing out at some point in this process for some reason or another.

Also, don't forget Sunday October 4 is the deadline for this month's Living Out Loud project where you tell us all about your theme music. I look forward to hearing all about it.

In a few weeks, we may try using ADT to kick start this labor, but for now I'm happy to wait.