The pregnancy wall I couldn’t see about a month ago, well I ran face first into it yesterday. All of the sudden my body went from medium rare to well done. My knees are so weak now I can barely get myself off the couch. My right foot is now resembling a loaf of bread and the only shoes that fit are my flip-flops. I have so many contractions that I can’t be on my feet for very long and on top of that I have to pee every 30 -45 minutes.  The doctors advise me to drink 3 liters of water a day to help with the contractions but they also say that having a full bladder can cause contractions so I might as well put a pillow, blanket and take my computer into the bathroom and just live there until baby decides she is ready to come out.

I had my weekly OB check yesterday and nothing has really changed..oh wait I take that back, I managed to lose a pound. It must be the little bit of walking around I have been doing. Oh and now that I can cook my own meals we are eating more vegetables, quinoa and protein and less macaroni, pizza and CRAP. Although I did have to whip up a batch of cookies the other night 😉 I think my nesting is coming out in the kitchen. I have made a Thai chicken pizza, pesto pasta with vegetables, marinated skirt steak with quinoa tabbouleh and last night we had chicken gyros with a greek salad. I think Gordon is wishing I was back on bed rest so he can have his macaroni with chili or hot dogs again.

My doctor is sending me on weekly non-stress test starting next week. They hook my belly up to two monitors one to measure babies heart rate and another to measure contractions. Movement, heart rate and “reactivity” of heart rate to movement is measured for 20-30 minutes. If the baby does not move, it does not necessarily indicate that there is a problem; the baby could just be asleep. A nurse may use a small “buzzer” to wake the baby for the remainder of the test.

I also was informed that I will have internal fetal monitoring during labor.  That is where an electrode is attached to the baby’s head to record heart tones, and a pressure catheter to record contractions. This is more accurate than the electronic monitoring, does not use ultrasound, and can provide continuous monitoring for the high risk mother. I don’t know much more that, hopefully all will go smoothly.

So for now I just sit and wait, hoping she comes soon. Maybe the end of next week. I am sure I will miss being pregnant but I sure would like to start moving around again…pain free!

Annoying things etiquette-challenged people tend to say to pregnant women…but shouldn’t!

1. Any sentence that starts with ” Are you allowed to…?” eat that? take that? drink that? As long as I am not smoking, taking crack or drinking a 5th of vodka a day…leave me alone!

2. Any statement that starts with ,”Wow you”… eat a lot now… gained a lot of weight… Thank you Dr. obvious!!!

3. Telling me your pregnancy and or labor horror stories.
I have worried enough I don’t need to start worrying about that too!

4. Don’t tell me how out of shape or uncomfortable you are. I just don’t want to hear it!

5. Please don’t comment on my body. Don’t ever say, “wow you are big.” And please don’t tell me how small I look either, that is not comforting.

6. I really enoying hearing this..”You should get as much sleep now as you can, because when that baby comes, you’ll never get a chance to sleep.” Jeez thanks! I never thought of that…Ugh if I could get comfortable enough and didn’t have to pee every 45 minutes I would.

7. And for the women who have been on and off bed rest, we don’t need to hear “take it easy” and “don’t overdue it”  I am not stupid!!

8. Finally, do not touch a women’s belly WITHOUT permission!! If you didn’t put it there then back away!

Everyone has their own, usually strong opinions about drinking wine during pregnancy. My doctor said a glass of wine here and there is perfectly safe after the first trimester. People get in great debates over this subject. “Why even risk it?” “How much is OK?” “Women in Europe drink wine during pregnancy”, it goes on and on. Scientific data cannot determine how much alcohol is too much , however they didn’t find any negative effects on babies whose mothers drank minimal amounts during their pregnancy. So it is advised that no amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy. Obviously Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a very real mental retardation but I do not think a glass of wine causes it. Actually I don’t even think a couple of glasses of wine a week causes it. I do think binge drinking, shots of tequila, keg stands, you know too much alcohol can cause it. See here is where it gets tricky, would I order a glass of wine at 9 months pregnant out at a restaurant? Hell no! Why? because I could just imagine that backlash, dirty looks and unsolicited advice I would get. I mean I even get dirty looks when I order a coffee at Starbucks..sheesh! So if I do want to have a little splash of vino I do it safely in the comfort of my home where I am not judged.

This brings me to Kate Hudson. If you haven’t heard or seen it yet, you will. Apparently Kate who is pregnant was photographed enjoying a glass of red wine while out on the town in Argentina. The media frenzy took over and now we will get to hear everyone’s 2 cents on what a terrible person she is and how dare she put her unborn child in danger.

I say “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” and apparently Argentinians like to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, even during pregnancy!

http://moms.today.com/_news/2011/04/05/6407429-kate-hudson-drinking-wine-call-the-pregnancy-police

I bid farewell to my Perinatologist this morning. Today was my final appointment with the specialist and it went as good as I hoped it would. Everything is just fine and dandy with the baby. Thankfully the velementous cord insertion hasn’t affected her at all and she is now weighing in at 5lbs. 110z. Now we just wait. A few of us have guesses when baby K will arrive, I am thinking next week is looking good.

I have enjoyed my time off of bed rest so far. We had a very good lunch in La Jolla, enjoyed dinner outside on our “newly” refurbished patio furniture and today I got an overdue mani pedi. The foot massage felt so good I can’t even explain it. It’s really nice getting some “me” time in before its not about me anymore!

Well my doctor gave me back the keys to my old life. I am no longer on bed rest and I am SO damn happy about it! I already have my whole weekend planned. Mani-pedi, lunch in Del mar and maybe even a trip to the mall, isn’t just so exciting? Well for me it is! I do however have to take it slow because my body isn’t used to all this excitement. At the end of our trip to Albertson’s the contractions were back and my lower back was aching.

I also asked the doctor to take a look to see how my cervix was doing. She said it was soft and could feel baby’s head. She doesn’t think I will have a baby this weekend, probably not this next week but possibly any time after. It will be interesting if being off bed rest causes things to “move” along faster than if I was sitting on my ass all day. My next appointment is next Friday. But for now it’s one day at a time.

I woke up this morning feeling like crap. Tired, emotional and a little nauseous. The day seemed to drag and I had a hard time keeping the tears from streaming down my face. The worst part was I that I had no idea why I was feeling down. Shane kept wanting to help, “what’s wrong, what can I do?” It’s hard to explain to him that I had no clue why but I just didn’t feel well. I really wanted to get out of the house for a little bit, to save my sanity. So I asked Shane to take me to Henry’s so we could get some veggies for dinner. I know I know you’re thinking how I am on bed rest and that’s a no-no, but if my Dr. gave me the OK to go to Target then a quick trip for corn should be fine. While we were out I started getting cramps and along with them came more nausea. When we got home the cramps seemed to get a little worse and I was really feeling sick. I decided it was time to take a pill, have a warm shower and lay down. After an hour and about 5 or 6 contractions later, I called the after hours Dr. and told her my situation. I really wanted to know how long I was supposed to wait after taking the Nifedipine until I was supposed to go to triage at Labor and Delivery.  The doctor said that if I was indeed in labor they wont medically stop it at 34+ weeks. So I should just stay home, rest and see if it gets worse. Holy crap!

After another hour I started to feel a little better, the cramps and urge to vomit started to subside. It’s been a few hours now and I am still feeling better, I think whatever was happening has passed for the time being. Today was a big reminder that D day is getting close and it’s actually a little scary. Hopefully we can hold on a little while longer. I am very exhausted from this day and ready for a long night’s rest!

Yesterday afternoon while I was waiting to hear back from  the Doctors office I decided to go to CVS pharmacy and check my blood pressure. I took it two different times and both times it was high. I was sure that was why my headache wasn’t going away. A little while later the nurse called back and told me to try Tylenol again and if the headache still didn’t go away to go to Labor and Delivery. Two Tylenol and a nap later I still had the stupid  headache. Shane suggested I go back to the pharmacy and check my blood pressure again and sure enough it was still high, actually a little higher this time. So about 7:30pm we headed to Labor and Delivery. During the drive there I was so nervous about going. I was worried once I checked in I wouldn’t check out.

By 8:30pm I was in a room hooked up to monitors and praying that I didn’t start having contractions. Those gurney’s are so uncomfortable and being uncomfortable is a big trigger for contractions. The nurse checked my blood pressure, amazingly it was normal, perfect actually, healthy as an Ox. Lesson  learned DO NOT trust your local pharmacy blood pressure machines. She didn’t see any signs of Pre-eclampsia or hypertension.

The nurse wanted to monitor the baby while she waited for my Dr. to call back with further instructions. About 10 minutes later she came in and said baby seemed sleepy so she wanted to wake her up so she could get a good heart rate reading . How do you wake a sleeping baby in a womb you ask? Well they use a small “buzzer” that vibrates and buzzes my stomach. Sure enough baby was awake after that. The nurse also brought in 2 containers of apple and cranberry juice to help keep her awake for a little bit. Around 10:00 she came back in and said all is good and I have a very healthy baby in me. Doctors orders were to give me a strong pain-killer and send me home, if I still had the headache tomorrow to call. Finally around 10:30pm and a percocet later, we went home and after all that I still had the headache.

It is now 1:00pm and the headache is still not gone. I have not called the doctor because I do not want to go back to the hospital. Part of me thinks the headaches get worse when I have a contraction, or maybe it’s because my body is adjusting to not having the pills around the clock, or it’s my eyesight. I have noticed that my eyesight has gotten worse during pregnancy. Whatever the cause I am going to try to make it through the weekend without calling the doctor.

Well it’s been over 24 hours since I stopped the Nifedipine and I am not in labor, so that’s a good sign. I took my last pill Tuesday evening and was feeling fine until noon yesterday. I had a couple of contractions that were a bit stronger and a lot longer than I am used to so I went ahead and took another pill. Since then I have had a few more of those contractions, they aren’t frequent but they last over 3 minutes. I don’t know if that is normal or not. I also developed a really bad headache yesterday that will not go away. So bad in fact that it woke up me up last night along with a contraction. I am now waiting for the nurse to call me back since the first thing I did this morning was call to complain 😉 I just want to make sure this headache doesn’t have anything to do with my blood pressure.

Yesterday was another day where baby K seemed lazy and since I had stopped the pills I wanted to make sure I could get my kick counts in. It took a few different sugary colds drinks to get her moving, but it worked. Drs and nurses say if you don’t get 10 kicks in an hour to drink something cold and sugary and then try again. This got me thinking. Being a teacher to young children for a long time now, I see with my own eyes what happens when you feed kids sugar even though studies have shown that “sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity”. I would love to invite anyone who thinks this to come to my classroom after the children eat cupcakes or ice cream. I have heard things like “it’s not the sugar but the excitement of the treats that cause them to act hyper”. So if that is true than why do babies in the womb start kung fu fighting a little while after mom consumes a coke? Can someone please explain?

I have been thinking about the birth plan that I will not write-up since I find it a little silly to expect anything to go as I would plan it to. However if I could actually plan it to go exactly how I want it to, here is how it would go down:

I am off bed rest, have been for a few weeks now. 38 weeks and Shane and I are out enjoying some wood fired pizza. As I finish the last bite of my wild mushroom and goat cheese pizza I notice I am having contractions. “This must be it” I tell Shane, we pay our bill and head home. I take a nice leisurely shower and grab the hospital bag and we are on our way.  The nurse greets me with a wheelchair at the entrance and mentions that she has a Cakebread Chardonnay chilling for us to enjoy after the delivery. “How nice of you” I say.  Labor progresses uneventfully, contractions are nothing,  mild cramps. My water breaks but no worries since I am getting reading to take a bath and arrange all my toiletries in the bathroom. I rinse off and get back in bed. My new doctor,  McDreamy who quit Seattle Grace to work at the nationally recognized Sharp Mary Birch comes in to check my dilation. 10 centimeters and crowning. He says I am ready to push. 4 pushes later, no tearing or stupid episiotomy needed. I deliver a perfectly healthy and clean baby girl. She instantly turns the perfect shade of pink and is put on my chest to breast feed. Shane pulls out the couch that turns into lovely little bed with a memory foam mattress. I turn on the TV, but it’s no ordinary TV it’s a 50 inch HD flat screen and in my birth plan,we have TiVo.  As our perfect baby latches on with ease to breastfeed, we settle in to watch the Season Premier of True Blood and enjoy a glass of wine.