At 36 weeks, I had a final ultrasound to check and make sure everything was good with the baby. Actually, it seems my doctor was worried about how the umbilical cord had attached to the placenta. I never really got a complete answer about why they were worried about this in my case (I definitely don't have a history of it, as one doctor claimed, seeing as this if my first pregnancy). But I'm mostly willing to trust the doctors, and I was eager to get some measurements of the baby anyway.
It seems that my umbilical cord is attached to the side of the placenta rather than in the center. Which can lead to two things: a malnourished baby and excessive bleeding during labor. Well, the baby certainly isn't malnourished. Which either means that the umbilical cord implanted properly or that it isn't an issue. As I'm writing this I'm realizing how little I actually know. I'm not sure how I feel about that. As I said, I basically trust my doctors. They've done this a lot more than I have.
What I did learn at that ultrasound is that my baby is enormous. They said he already weighed about 7 lbs, 11 oz, putting him in the 87th percentile. The tech said I looked closer to 38 weeks than 36, and my mom said that's nearly what I weighed when I was born.
So now I'm hoping the the kid decides to come early. Even though Kevin was almost 2 weeks late and weighed well over 10 pounds when he was born, I have my fingers crossed that our son will come a little earlier and be a little smaller. Which he probably won't. I can still dream though.
The problem is that I'm now driving myself a little bit crazy looking for signs that I'm going into labor. According to the internet, literally everything could be a sign of early labor. Then again it could just be a symptom of late pregnancy. And it's basically impossible to tell until you actually go in to labor. Not that that's stopped me (or thousands of other women) from tracking these signs and convincing ourselves that the baby's coming only to be disappointed.
Two days after the ultrasound, I experienced some spotting over night. Then I had intermittent back pain in the morning. Convinced that things were starting, I call my doctor and moved my scheduled appointment up a day. Of course nothing was actually happening, but I did get some peace of mind about it at least. I also discovered that the cervix check is more painful than I would have thought possible. So now I'm both eagerly awaiting and straight up terrified of going into labor. But billions of women have done this and most of them came through it just fine.
I'm still hoping the kid decides to show up any day now. I still have three weeks until my due date, and two weeks until I have enough PTO to go on maternity leave. But I'm so sick of being pregnant and so anxious about birthing this monster of a child that I can't help but hope he comes early. Especially since he would be considered full-term at this point. In the meantime I need to try to stay away from the internet.
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