Holy Mother of Goats!!!

38 Weeks & 1 Day

Apparently I'm pregnant with some sort of moose, or a humpback whale, because holy shit my unborn child is measuring in the 97th percentile and they're estimating his weight to be somewhere between 8-9 lbs right now, so who knows how big he'll be by the time he's born. All of this came as a huge surprise because my belly isn't measuring very big at all and I really haven't gained that much weight. The only reason I had an ultrasound today was to check on a cyst they spotted at my 20 week scan (seems to be fine, by the way, but they're doing another u/s at 6 weeks postpartum just to be sure).

Anyway, they brought an OB in to speak with us about this monster child (over here you generally only deal with midwives, unless there are special circumstances or emergencies), and she basically said "if you try to have a home birth your baby could get stuck in your pelvis and die". well, maybe she didn't say it exactly like that but that's how it came across to me, because I instantly burst into tears, and then she backtracked saying that was really rare but it was still a risk and it was better to be in a hospital. She then left to speak to a midwife and when she came back in she told us that the midwives can't deal with us anymore, and we have to be in consultant-led care (with the OBs). So this not only means no home birth, but it means we can't even have the baby in the nice birthing center in the hospital- we have to be in the high risk unit. I mean, yeah this is a big baby, but it's not like it's all that unheard of, even if he's 10 lbs at birth. Besides growth estimates can be off by as much as a pound, so he might only be 7ish lbs right now (not thinking that this could also mean that he's already almost 10 lbs...). So the high risk unit? Really?

Both Gez and I were pretty disappointed, and I was crying so much in the hospital and when we got home. I know it's really silly, because all of this means that we have an extremely healthy baby, and people are often faced with much much worse news about their babies. But I'm 38 weeks pregnant, apparently carrying Andre the Giant, not even dilated a little bit, and that news made me sad.

I know that no matter what it will be a wonderful experience, and all that matters is that we end up with a healthy baby. I'm feeling much better about it now, just trying to get my head around this new plan, and hoping that I won't need to have a c-section in the end. I guess it's just a little reminder of what happens to the best laid plans.

Oh the cherry on the cake was when she just went ahead and scheduled me an appointment for 41 weeks, "which is when we'll start talking induction if you haven't had the baby yet." Ummmm, I'm pretty sure that by 41 weeks this child will have a beard and an Elks Club membership because he'll be the size of a 36 year old man, so any sort of induction at that point better involve a steady drip of tequila, Harry Connick Jr singing in my hospital room while Jennifer Aniston braids my hair and Gerard Butler feeds me french fries. Oh and Maya Angelou reads a selection of inspirational poems.

Blech- no thanks! this baby needs to be born yesterday!

Total blogging fail

I apologize! I know after my last little hiatus I said I'd never leave for so long again. The bad thing is that I don't really have much of an excuse. I've been finished with work for almost 3 weeks now (God bless you, awesome British maternity laws!), and it's not like I have a baby to take care of yet or anything. Y'all should be swimming in posts at this point. Apparently I'd rather sit around watching Frasier reruns and eating PB sandwiches in my jammies (which totally rocks, I'm not gonna lie).

Ok, the question everyone keeps asking me is "how are you feeling?" Well, I'm feeling pretty good for having a 37 week and 1 day baby inside of me (read: a fully grown human infant). I'm not completely uncomfortable, but if he felt like making his big debut I wouldn't be adverse to that. Sleeping is the worst- even though I'm totally dead tired by like 9 pm, I'm up every 1-2 hours in the night, mostly to pee, sometimes for no reason at all. A couple of nights last week were spent wrapped in my bathrobe in the living room, trying to find some online distraction between 4-6:30 am because the only thing on TV was some Eastern European football. I know a lot of this is partly because my body is preparing itself to care for a demanding newborn. Side note: How do you do that, body? I mean you've never had a baby before, so where are you getting this information? Can't we just have a quick briefing on the future requirements followed by a restful nights sleep? Please? I'll bring donuts!

Another thing people ask about is nesting. Up until yesterday I was swearing up and down that I wasn't nesting (remember the Frasier/sandwiches/jammies combo?), no way would I stoop to such a pregnancy cliche. But Friday morning saw me dusting every room in the house, cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, doing all of the laundry (our hamper is empty, folks, this is totally unprecedented), and even washing the sofa cushion covers. I'm still a leeetle unconvinced that this was actually nesting, and more of a realization that I was now carrying a full term baby, my house was a mess, and hello we're having a home birth! I didn't want the midwives to see my house that way, because they probably would have refused to let us keep our son. Speaking of the midwives, I'm completely and irrationally obsessing about their comfort while they're in our home. As if I'm going to be a charming hostess or something. Today we stocked up on special cookies to have on hand for them during the birth (it's sort of common sense, would you want grumpy, hungry midwives all up in your world delivering your baby? You see, everyone is happier with a few cookies under their belt). In reality, I think it goes back to my innate need to be the best at things. I have visions of the midwives going back to their midwife friends and saying how we were "the best home birth! It was like delivering in a 5-star hotel, and Meg was completely delightful through the whole thing! OH, and did we mention the cookies!?"

Yeah, so that'll be a funny contrast to what actually goes down. Which hopefully won't be too far in the future. I'll try my best to keep you updated until then. You know, if I can fit it in between Frasier episodes.