My friends and family held a little celebration in honor of baby girl yesterday. They showered us with diapers and wipes and a carseat! So it seems only fitting to update on how things are going. I'm a little over 34 weeks now. I need to make it to 36 weeks (anything before that and the doctors try to stop labor), so I have to last another week and a half. I won't lie, I feel a bit like a ticking time bomb. Even though it's unusual overall (less than 10%), my labors with both of the girls started with my water breaking just like in the movies (random tidbit...it sounds like a carrot snapping), so anytime my back or hip pops I hold my breath for a second and wonder if that was THE pop.
My blood pressure is still good, which is good for her--high blood pressure can interfere with how well the placenta works. Her heart rate is holding steady and she's growing well. She's still head down, but has flipped over to lay on my right side (optimal positioning before delivery is for the baby to be on mom's left side). That actually might be a good thing for now, because her being in a less than optimal position makes it a little harder for me to dilate. Birthing malpositioned babies isn't fun (as I learned with Sedona), but I'll take that over delivering too early. Baby has dropped down already. It actually feels like she moves lower every 2 or 3 days.
The contractions have definitely started up though. Sometimes 3 or 4 minutes apart for hours at a time (but not getting closer together or longer). I'm about 2-3cm and 70% effaced, which is pretty on track with where I was with the girls at this point. I suspect I'll have another fast labor because of that (well, depending on when you start counting from...I tend to labor an hour at a time for weeks before actual delivery). I have an herbal medicine I take to stop contractions (I'm normally very skeptical of herbal treatments, but it worked great with Sedona and it's worked great this time without the side effects of the more traditional medicines). I also take extra calcium and magnesium each day now and that's calmed down the contractions.
So we're in a holding pattern. She could come any time now, but every extra day is a bonus and it'd be really great if I could last until 36 weeks. Maybe we'll have a Halloween baby.
Oh, and two of you have accurately guessed her name. I lied and told you that you were wrong though (which I said I would do, so I'm not sure why everyone keeps guessing!). Also, we changed Sierra's name (she was going to be Dakota) right before she was born, so who knows if we'll really stick with this name or not anyway ;-)
4 comments:
Really?? Carrots snapping? Both of my 'labors' started with my water breaking and it was very quiet, more like a small gas bubble that 'popped'. Barely noticeable...if you take out the trickle of water running down my legs. :P
That happened first, then it was the carrot snapping sound (both times)--Josh can vouch for me, he heard it! With the smaller pop, we kinda went, "uh...what was that?" but then a minute or so later was the big pop and we both jumped up...no doubt what that one was! The first small pop caused a trickle, the second bigger one came with a big gush. I suspect the smaller pop/trickle is either up top or a small tear and the bigger one/gush is down at the bottom or else the sac just totally giving way?
Crap. Someone's guessed the name?
Then chances are high that I've probably made fun of it in some way.
Thanks for still being my friend!
Oh and we're all still guessing b/c we're just hoping you won't be as good of an actress the next time we say it...:P
ROFL! Actually, now we're set on a middle name but back to wavering between two different first names, so even WE don't know what it is!
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