37 Weeks, 3 Days – FULL TERM and READY TO POP!

I feel like dog poop.  Really.  Completely uncomfortable.  So worn out.  Weak.  Emotional.  Crampy.  Depressed.  AND in pain.  I haven’t been sleeping at all.  Partly because I am so horribly uncomfortable sporting severe back pain, hip pain and menstrual-like cramps when I try to sleep and partly because I’ve been so swamped with work I haven’t had much time to even attempt to sleep in the first place!

I went to another ultrasound scan yesterday and learned the baby flipped… THE OTHER DIRECTION… SHE DID A 180!  She is still transverse, just butt at my right rib cage and head at my left now!  WTF?!?!  The ultrasound doc said this is very bad this late in pregnancy because if my water breaks there is nothing to stop the umbilical cord from falling through and cutting off the baby’s oxygen and nutrition supply.  EEK.  He suggested we do an amneothesis to check her lung development and do a c-section right away.  To make matters worse, he said the baby is measuring really, really big.  The ultrasound technician kept saying “Look at those chubby cheeks and fat little arms.  You have a little sumo wrestler inside you.”  Ummmmmm.  I’m not sure if I am too happy about this for a multitude of reasons… first of all, why is she so fat?  I haven’t been eating bad.  I’ve been eating mostly pretty healthy, really… well, maybe I have been eating chocolate every day, but not loads of it or anything!  And second, even if she moves into a proper vertex position, can my body even birth a 9 or 10 lb baby??!??!  When I told G how big she is measuring, he giggled and said, “I really don’t see how little ‘ole you could have a child that big.  I just can’t picture a 9 or 10 lb baby coming out of you!”  Glad he has a sense of humor about this.

Next, was my regular OBGYN doc appointment.  She also did an ultrasound and saw the cord looked like it might be wrapped around the baby’s neck and that is why she can’t move into a normal head-down position!!!! OMG!!!! If I wasn’t freaked out enough before, I am completely freaked out now!  My blood pressure was 116 over 80 which is high for me since the whole pregnancy I’ve been 100 over 60.

Even with the concerns presented, the OBGYN said we will take things day by day and not jump the gun on a c-section quite yet.  She told me to try to remain positive about a healthy VBAC, but not to be too disappointed if I end up with another c-section.  Not too reassuring… I’m trying to remain positive about both situations without mentally sabotaging myself and my baby by creating a c-section situation through the power of my mental fears.  This is super tricky.  I dare you to try it.

G couldn’t go with me to either appointment.  He usually can’t go since he works so much.  Thankfully my Mom is here now and so she went with me this time.  George has been working like crazy at the boat show day and night.  Alexa saw her Daddy for a total of 5 minutes this morning and begged him not to leave.  It was so sad.  Usually, George has been leaving before she wakes up each day and doesn’t get home until she’s in bed each night.  L  He finishes with the boat show stuff this Monday and then he is debating on going to a Rybovich executive 3 day golf trip the end of next week!  I am really not happy about it, but ultimately it is George’s choice.

When I broke the “good” news to George about my two doctor’s appointments, it took all I had to choke back my tears.  Normally, I am NOT the kind of person who runs to the doctor or hospital for pains or whatever even while pregnant.  I usually will stick it out for probably longer than I should before finally contacting someone (usually a friend) to ask if what I am feeling is normal.  However, now, after hearing both doctors’ comments and concerns yesterday, I told G that I might turn into one of those freak-a-zoid pregos who rushes to the hospital when I haven’t felt the baby move in an hour or if some kind of odd abdominal pain scares me.  I am just beside myself now that this baby might be strangled by my own umbilical cord!

Ok, trying to turn all this negativity and fear into a positive… I am still standing on my head a few times a day and listening to positive birthing mantras on my ipod at night in an attempt to get her to move into the correct position.  I am talking to this little life inside of me and praying for her daily.  Now that the boat show has started, my work load should begin to ease up a bit by the end of this weekend.  And maybe G will start to understand that going away on a work golf trip when your wife is 39 weeks pregnant, and now a high-risk pregnancy, might not be the smartest move.

Maybe my next blog I will be writing about my happy, peaceful birth experience and posting pictures of my beautiful, healthy little angel.  Until then…

35 Weeks, 3 Days

Last Thursday, George and I excitedly attended the much anticipated 34 week ultrasound in ENGLISH.  Yay!  We can finally see our baby and communicate to the technicians and doctor about any questions or concerns we have been harboring since our last 20 week French scan.  We walked into the ultrasound office confident things were most likely perfectly normal and the baby is in position ready to be birthed.  We were oh so excited to have a more enriching ultrasound experience being that we could communicate better with American docs than what we received in France this summer with the communication barrier.  Don’t get me wrong, the French ultrasound scan was good, high tech and all, but the language barrier created some uneasiness as to our individual outcome.  We were very excited to be able to communicate better this time.  Well… expectations shot… that’s not exactly how it went down.

As the scanner began making its gooey way across my swollen belly, the young and rather cold technician began by telling us the baby is in a transverse position.  WHAT?!?!? Confused, I said, really?  Well, that’s not good, right?  She continued by agreeing that this position is not good and showed us the baby’s head smashed up against my right rib cage and her little butt smashed against my left rib cage.  Her legs and arms are having a grand ‘ole time kicking and punching me with the extra room on the entire lower part of my belly.

Let me back up with a little fetal position education… in case you are not aware, most babies turn into a head down position, called the vertex position, ready to be birthed by around 30 weeks.  Some rare babies turn breech instead meaning feet down, head up, but can actually be birthed vaginally in a breech position if they stay that way until the end.  However, many c-section happy doc’s won’t allow a vaginal breech birth.  Extremely rare is the transverse baby where the head is neither down or up and instead sideways.  Babies in transverse position CAN NOT BE BORN VAGINALLY NO MATTER WHAT.  Not to mention, this position is extremely painful for the mother since there is way less room going side to side in the uterus than top to bottom.  I literally feel like my ribs are breaking constantly especially on my right side.  It is a constant dull aching pain with intermittent sharp jolts of pain when she tries to move.  And now my upper right side of my back is causing constant excruciating pain as well.  To say it bluntly, this completely sucks!  All I want is to have a normal, healthy, calm, peaceful vaginal birth.  A birth where I can connect with my baby immediately after she comes out.  A birth where we can all enjoy the benefits of delayed cord clamping and no pain medicines, pitocin or epidurals.  A birth with calm music and dim lights verses the bright and loud surgical rooms.  I want to avoid the major surgery of a c-section that includes the horridly long and painful recovery and instead experience a natural birth with little to no recovery.  I don’t want my baby to be ripped out of me and whisked away for an hour or more while they sew me up.  I JUST WANT TO HOLD MY BABY THE MINUTE SHE EXISTS MY BODY!! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!?!?!  But this little baby laying in transverse position is threatening any chance of a peaceful delivery and any chance of that oh so important immediate mother/child bonding.

After the initial shock and disappointment learning the baby is transverse, the technician began to look for all the relevant body parts.  One leg, two legs, one foot, two feet, one arm, where’s the other arm?…. As the technician struggled to find the other arm, instead of keeping her concerns quiet, she blurts out “did you actually see both arms in your 20 week scan in France?”  What?!?!? Again… I began to tense up and freak a bit… “Ummmmm, I am pretty sure we saw both arms and legs, right honey?”  George didn’t say a word.  He just stared at the monitor watching what the technician was doing.  She then started to look for the heart and once she found the heart, she coldly said, “how thorough was the ultrasound doc in France when he looked at the heart?”  The tone of her voice implied that she was seeing something disturbing with our baby’s heart.  We both quickly piped in and told her “the doc is France was very through to our knowledge and his ultrasound machine was better than this one you are using.”  She seemed to get a bit defensive and refused to answer any more of our questions.  She continued looking at different body parts on our baby in silence and then left the room stating the doctor will come in to talk to us.  Five minutes later, the doctor comes in and says he wants to do the scan himself before he talks to us.  As he repeated the scan, his voice was a bit nicer and more compassionate, but still hesitant.  He mentioned that he was having difficulty seeing things, but that he had no reason to believe anything was actually wrong.  He just couldn’t see much.  He said our 12 weeks scan with him looked really good.  I said to him I can show you the scan from France and he quickly replied with “I don’t look at other doctor’s pictures.”

George and I walked out of there feeling waaaay worse than before.  Forget the transverse position… most importantly is our child okay?  Does she have two arms?  Is her heart okay?  How could someone be so cold as to scare the crap out of us like this?  The second I got home I pulled out the images of her 20 week French scan and began searching for photos that included both arms and any images I could find of her little heart.  Thankfully, there were a few photos that showed two elbow and two hands, so I’m sure there must be two healthy arms connecting to them and her heart seemed to show a healthy pump with four chambers.  I’m sure the French doc would have told us if he saw anything abnormal.  What a shitty ass American technician!  What a bitch!

Since we found out a week ago about the transverse position, I’ve gone to 3 chiropractor appointments, another doctor check up, another ultrasound, had the “Webster Massage Method” done on me 3 times, I’ve been burning some weird incent thing on my little toe, I’ve done acupuncture on my other little toe, AND I’ve been standing on my head and laying inverted as much as I can all in between doing my massive amounts of work for Rybovich preparing for the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show and my two freelance jobs as well as taking care of Alexa, the house and meals while George is out of the country yet again this time playing golf in Spain!  Ahhhhhhh… ok, Big breath…. Ok, I’m glad I got that all out.

I would post the pictures from our 34 week ultrasound, but it is so not worth it.  The scan photos are shit.  I’m sure everything is fine, but I’m still praying every day.  Praying for a healthy baby, praying for a healthy delivery and hoping this little munchkin decides to turn into proper birthing position soon.

34 Weeks, 2 Days

And so the swelling begins… Sausage fingers, prego face and an 11 lb gain in only 6 weeks!!! Almost double the average expected weight gain.  Eek!  The photo below isn’t me and it isn’t my cat either, but I sure can relate right about now…

33 Weeks, 3 Days

33 Weeks!

Each day simultaneously feels like it is creeping and flying.  The ripping pain in my sides, constant thirst, and all-night hourly pee breaks, coupled with Alexa’s all-night, night-terror Mommy comfort needs, is making for long, long nights.  Yet my days quickly swirl out of control as I run circles in panic mode finding myself at the end of the day stunned as to where the time goes.  Still, somehow, I manage to feel completely unproductive at the end of the day.  Ok, B-r-e-a-t-h-e Alyssa… well, that would be easier if I wasn’t battling a bad cold complete with achy muscles, sore throat and headache.

Truth is, the pregnancy itself is probably physically easier than it was when I was pregnant with Alexa.  Although my sides feel like they are going to rip open with pain so strong it’s left me in tears, I’m not swollen, I’ve only gained 25 lbs so far, my back pain is not as severe as before, and I am having no problems with carpal tunnel like I did before.  What is making this pregnancy feel more difficult is the exhaustion associated with parenting a head strong toddler who constantly tests my limits and worse, I’m parenting her alone.  George has been separated from us for about 17 days now.  Thankfully he will be home at the end of this week, but only for 10 days.  Then he’s off to Spain again.

Honestly though, my emotions are the biggest killer right now.  Pregnancy hormones, lack of sleep, and end of pregnancy exhaustion/pain, has left this normally extremely patient, conscious mother intolerant, edgy and irritated.  And the guilt associated with my lack of patience with Alexa is unbearable.  I’ve shed many tears as of late.  What’s eating away at me most is my normally good sleeper has developed night terrors and is consistently taking an hour and a half or more to go to sleep each night and insisting that I lay with her until she falls asleep.  And this is after we spend an hour taking a bath, brushing teeth, getting ready for bed, and reading a few books.  The entire process is exhausting!  After this long dramatic going to sleep routine, I can expect to be woken up not once but sometimes twice during the night as she cries for me wanting me to lay down with her again and again to help her fall back asleep.  As you can imagine, this gets more and more difficult the more uncomfortable I become in this pregnancy.  As I lay in her bed with her night after night, visions of me trying to get Alexa to sleep for hours while trying to take care of a newborn simultaneously while George is gone traveling swarm my head and my impatience with Alexa grows.  Lately, after hours and still she is awake, talking and begging me not to leave her, I end up raising my voice at her, becoming very stern insisting she stop dottling and go to sleep.  It is a fight that breaks my heart to engage in with her.  But what am I to do?  The new baby is coming soon.  I’m running out of time!!  But here’s the real question…running out of time in what respect?  Am I running out of time because I feel I have to push Alexa to be independent, to face her fears to go to sleep on her own again and I only have 6 weeks or less to do it in OR am I running out of my time with my precious Alexa because soon she will be too grown up to ever want to snuggle with me again?  My sweet, beautiful, caring child wants to snuggle with me at night.  How can I get angry with her for that?  Even if it takes 5 hours to get her to sleep each night, I should cherish these moments.  Tears flow again.  I feel like such a horrible, ungrateful mother.  Some day soon I’m going to miss these moments and sadly I am afraid that day might be coming all too soon.  This baby is coming in 6 to 7 weeks.  Am I ready for this?  I miss my little Alexa already…

31 Weeks, 4 Days

I'm getting super big really fast and carrying really, really high.  My upper ribs are bruised from the inside, I'm sure of it.  Things are good.  Really good.  Really fucking busy too.  Honestly, even though I have so much to share as of late, I can't write any more than this.  I'm too tired.  Must shut down the computer.  Must sleep.  Just know, I feel good, Alexa feels good, baby feels good, we miss G and it's been an insanely productive week.

Weird angle, but you get the point - bigger and bigger from one week to the next...

30 Weeks, 4 Days

Getting bigger...