Speck is still on the inside.
Week 39 was busy with work, but still dotted with lots of napping and included my first pregnancy 'freak out over nothing but get checked anyway just to be sure.'
So, to start with last weekend involved some weekend festivities in which I got a lot of weird looks from people because my non-alcoholic beers looked a lot like real beer. Part of me wants to wear a t-shirt in that situation that reads "no, it's not real beer" and part of me just wants to tell everyone to fuck off for their judgmental stares. The part of me that wins is the third part that actually just doesn't give a crap. In related news, I found two new fake beers that are pretty tasty! (Why oh why did I only find them when I've got 1-3 weeks of this left?!?) Anyway, it turns out the same company that makes the delicious non-alcoholic radler that I enjoy so much also makes a fake heffeweizen and a fake pilsner that are both pretty good (though I prefer the heffe personally). Krombacher for the win! So for any pregnant ladies reading this who are still in need of some good fake beer, go check those options out and see what you think.
Sunday involved driving three hours away to go visit a friend who is in the hospital (on the mend, thankfully) which brought up an interesting question that made the imminence of this whole thing resulting in a baby strangely real: What do we do if I go into labor while we're three hours from home? Well, the short answer was we bring the carseat, the hospital bag, and the baby bag and deal with it as it comes up. If there's time to get back to Winnipeg, great. If not, hey, we're already at a hospital!
As I've already told you that Speck is still on the inside, it's obvious that nothing happened, but it was a bit unsettling to have to acknowledge that this is close enough to happening that we needed to have all of our gear with us, just in case.
Anyway, there and back no problem, no labor, and Monday I went straight back to work on translation stuff (yes, I know it was labor day, no that doesn't mean I gave myself the day off). So, I've been squeezing work in wherever I can these days, and the thing I am squeezing it into tends to be between naps and dog walks. I am not sleeping very well at night (hence why I'm writing this at 3am) and then I am taking multiple 2-3 hour naps during the day. I have to say, I'm happy that I'm able to get sleep at any point in the day, whether or not it's a night. I am getting enough sleep that I generally feel well through most of the day, but some days my brain doesn't feel like it kicks in properly and then I try to put off my contract work until I've got enough thinking power to do my job well. So, that's a thing.
Meanwhile, I spend lots of time on my exercise ball to save my back and hips and still try to walk the dog a long ways during the day to keep the body from seizing up.
On Wednesday I went to my midwife appointment and all was well. Speck seems to be doing fine and my blood pressure is normal etc. The only minorly troubling thing was that Speck, though still head down, had switched from what's known as LOA to what's known as ROA. I won't get too into the details of this one, but for those who don't know, babies can be in all kinds of positions before labor, and the position they are in when labor starts can greatly affect how long labor takes and how "comfortable" it is (or not) for the woman giving birth. LOA is considered optimal for a shorter, more efficient labor. ROA is not. If you would like more information on these positions the internet is full of it, please enjoy some online research.
Speck had been LOA for weeks prior to this last appointment, so I was disappointed to find out that Speck had moved to a position that was likely to draw labor out for me. But my midwife is awesome and had some great tips on how to encourage Speck to head back on over to LOA. So I went home being not too worried and excited to try some things out.
Fast forward to that same night and I explain to Corey what the different positions are and why I'm concerned and decide to demo the forward inversion (putting my ass in the air and my head on the ground in order to give Speck the freedom to move a bit - totally dignified, makes an excellent party trick) that my midwife has shown me. That all goes fine, but right afterwards Speck is moving a ton and suddenly feels like s/he is no longer engaged (head nestled cozily in my pelvis) and seems to be splaying out sideways and OH HOLY SHIT I'VE RUINED EVERYTHING MY BABY IS NOW TRANSVERSE. Ahem, or so I thought to myself.
I proceeded to freak out for most of Wednesday night and well into Thursday. So far into Thursday, actually, that I only finally called my midwife around 4pm after my doula convinced me it was a good idea and she wouldn't mind. My midwife was wonderful, calmed me down, and booked me in to see her on Friday to check and see where Speck was and make sure all was well. She also suggested I walk as much as possible to see if Speck settled back into my pelvis.
Sure enough, come Friday's appointment (which I walked to because it was 10km round trip and I thought it would be the easiest way to follow the midwife's advice) Speck is back in place, still head down, and engaged once more, and... still ROA. But the midwife answered all of my questions, and we talked through things enough that I am now confident that if Speck needs help turning I can do another inversion and not be worried that Speck will do somersaults and wind up breech or something. (Turns out there's just not enough room in there for Speck to easily turn into any of the really bad positions -- it wouldn't be impossible, but it's highly unlikely -- so even though Speck will likely move around a fair bit after being dislodged via an inversion, Speck will ultimately settle head down again and hopefully just turn to LOA first if I do things right and Speck isn't feeling too stubborn.)
So, that was my completely unnecessary freak out. I would feel embarrassed, but it's been my only one so far this pregnancy and I swear, if you had felt the way this kid was moving around after her/his head came free you would have been freaking out too. I figure I get at least one freak out pass and that was it.
Ok. That takes us to Friday, which was my changeover day finishing up week 39 so I think it's safe to call this post done. And now it's 3:24am and I am finally feeling tired enough to go to sleep, so I am going to do that. (In fact I'm tired enough that I question the coherence of the last part of this blog.) Here's this week's bump pic:
Bonus dog!
Next week could be a normal week on the blog or the bump pic could be on the outside! Only time will tell...
No comments:
Post a Comment