We’re having a baby tomorrow! (Take 2)

 

I’m being induced tomorrow.  I was looking back on my blog at my account of Abbie’s birth and how I was feeling the day before I was induced with her.  (You can read that here.)  It’s kind of amazing how differently I feel this time around.  I really wish I felt the same way I did with her, but I don’t.  Honestly, I’m scared.  I feel guilty because everyone is asking me if I’m excited to meet my little boy, and I am, but I haven’t even thought about meeting him much.  I’m so focused on getting him out and all the problems that I could have with that, that I haven’t really thought much past the actual birth.  I’ll probably be so relieved to actually get him out okay that I’ll pass out after he’s born.  I did that once with a tetanus shot.  I was SO worked up about it that I passed out after I got it because I was so relieved it was over with.

Monday I had another NST and I met with the doctor who will be delivering our baby for the first time.  They have three doctors and a midwife on base, and I’d met the other 2 dr’s and the midwife, but not this dr.  I wish I had met him a long time ago.  I’d typically be nervous about having a male ob/gyn, but I REALLY like this guy.  He has a very calm, soothing demeanor about him, and he almost immediately put me at ease.  He was easy to talk to and smiled a lot and threw in a few jokes where appropriate and he knew when to be funny and when to be serious.  I pretty much drilled him with questions and he answered all of them honestly and without delay.  I didn’t feel like he was trying to beat around the bush at all, or sugar coat things for me, but on the other hand, he was very reassuring at the same time.  I told him all of my concerns, what I was afraid of, my experience with Abbie, what I was hoping for this birth and he was agreeable with everything I said.  He told me that he doesn’t see why there’s any reason I won’t be able to deliver vaginally and if that’s what I want, then he’ll do his best to make that happen.  I told him how people have me all freaked out about a shoulder dystocia with this baby and he said part of that is because on of the doctors here had a shoulder dystocia when they were in their residency and they lost the baby.  So that person is extra sensitive to shoulder dystocia’s and takes a very cautious approach to them.  But this doctors approach was that he thinks everything will be okay.  He said it’s his job to worry about that if the time comes and that he will be prepared for the worst but planning for the best.  There are a whole list of maneuvers they can do if a baby does have a shoulder dystocia and he said he’s never had to go past the fourth maneuver in his 10 years of being an ob/gyn.  So all of my chat with him was pretty reassuring, but I’m still scared.  I just want the birth to be over with, so I can start focusing on my baby boy and not worrying about the birth.

I had an ultrasound on Friday.  I was 38w1d and he was measuring 40w5d and weighed 9lb5oz.  My dr was laughing because the cut off for them offering me a primary c-section was 4250g, and baby boy was like 4232g, so he BARELY missed the cut off for that.  But it’s a moot point anyway since I don’t want a primary c-section at all.  If it comes to that, eventually, then fine.  But I’m just happy they’re going to give me an opportunity to have him vaginally.

I’ve been having some contractions lately.  They’re not consistent, but my whole belly gets as hard as a rock and it gets a little hard to breathe and is just kind of uncomfortable.  They don’t necessarily hurt, but sometimes I have to breathe a little funny through them.  I was timing them a few nights ago and they were coming about every 10 minutes and lasting about 2 minutes.  If I’m out and about, I have them pretty regularly, but if I lay down or put my feet up, they usually go away.  I had one of them wake me up last night, but it was mainly because I had to pee and the contraction made that even more noticeable.  Hopefully that means I’ll be more than 3-4cm dilated tomorrow when they induce me.  A few of my friends have said I look like I’ve dropped quite a bit, but I have no clue.  I can’t tell if I have or not.

So tomorrow is the big day.  I’m hoping and praying that everything turns out okay and that he doesn’t get stuck.  I’ll be very glad once the birth is over with.  Abbie is pretty excited about having a baby brother.  My friend, Jennifer, is going to come over early tomorrow morning to stay with Abbie for a day while Mark is with me at the hospital.  Then he’ll come home to be with her and he might drop her off with other friend later on so he can spend more time with us during the day without having to chase Abbie around.

Time to go get a few more things done and ready around the house!

It’s a ….

BOY!!!

I’m not exactly sure why, but for some reason, I knew this baby was a boy, so I wasn’t at all surprised when the ultrasound revealed his gender.  And even though I’d said if I could choose, I would choose a girl, I am MORE than excited that this little one is a boy.  I asked Abbie a few weeks ago if she thought we would have a baby boy or a baby girl and she said “Ummm…  … …  a baby boy.”  So apparently she knew too, even though it took her a bit to come to that conclusion.

I was going to have the ultrasound tech just write the gender on a piece of paper so I could just open it when Mark called and we could find out together, but this little guy isn’t shy at all so it was very obvious even to my completely untrained eye that he was a boy.  Mark was supposed to call at 11am, shortly after my appointment, but naturally he was delayed due to flying and didn’t end up calling until almost 2pm.  I was able to keep my mouth shut though for those hours, despite my parents really wanting to know and other friends/family texting me, so Mark was the 2nd person to know for sure what we are having.  And that’s the way I wanted it.

Mark seems to be much more excited about this pregnancy now that we know the gender.  I think it is hard for him to connect to the situation being so far away and fighting a war, but now that we know we’re having a boy, he’s very excited about it.  He would have been excited for another girl too, I think just knowing what we’re having makes it more real for him.

I am more excited about this pregnancy now that it’s confirmed I’m having a little boy too.  I’ve heard NUMEROUS mom’s of boys tell me that boys love their momma’s best.  I’m excited about that since Abbie is definitely a daddy’s girl.  Not that she doesn’t prefer me most of the time, but she definitely has a special relationship with Mark.  I’ve been feeling this little guy move and kick some in the past week or two, so that also makes it feel more real also.  I can’t wait until Abbie can feel him kicking, but I might wait until Mark is home before I try to get her to feel that so he can be here for her reaction too.

My midwife freaked me out a bit by saying that a doctor was going to review the ultrasound results and that she wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted a follow up ultrasound done sometime in September.  She was really vague about why she thought that when I questioned her on it and said something about not getting good readings on things in the ultrasound.  I decided to call the office the next day just to see why exactly she thought that since I didn’t want to worry about it for the next month.  The doctor did review the ultrasounds and said that there was no further need for evaluation and the baby was registering normal in all categories.  I guess they didn’t get clear pictures of the hands because he’s so wiggly, but that doesn’t call for a repeat ultrasound.  He is already measuring a week and a half ahead of schedule in many of his length measurements, but that’s not too surprising since Mark and I seem to create tall babies.  (Which stands to reason since Mark is 6’3 and I’m 5’9.)

We are so excited to be adding a little boy to our family and I am glad that we’ll have one of each now.  I think raising a little boy will be a different experience for us, but we welcome that challenge.  I’m interested in seeing the similarities and differences in raising boys verses girls.  We’re definitely counting down the days to December!

(If you haven’t guessed already, join our guessing game linked at the bottom of the page!)

12 weeks and 2 years

Abbie and I had doctors appointments this week.  I had my 12 week OB appointment, which included my first ultrasound with this baby, and she had her 2 year well baby check up.

(10 weeks)

I was a nervous wreck for a week or two leading up to my appointment.  I’d had at least 2 ultrasounds by 12 weeks with Abbie’s pregnancy since that’s the way my OB in Oklahoma did things.  I didn’t really like waiting until 12 weeks to see if everything was okay with the PP (nickname for baby #2).  I felt really pregnant until about 10 weeks.  I was already showing a bunch, I had a bunch of “stretching” feelings, and my stomach was rock hard.  Around 11 weeks, I’d stopped feeling those little pregnancy twinges, I could completely suck my stomach in and I just didn’t feel pregnant.  So I was beyond nervous that this u/s was going to bring bad news.  Thank God, it didn’t.

As soon as she turned the camera on, the PP started bucking around in there, kicking its legs and flailing it’s arms, so I was immediately relieved.  She printed out bunches of pictures for us, and even printed out duplicates so I could send Mark copies of them.  She gave me 3 of one of them, so I gave Abbie a copy of one, and she’s been hauling it around pointing to the baby saying “baby in mommy’s belly”.  Today she lifted up my shirt because she wanted to see the baby in my belly.  Haha!  She’s pretty cute.  She’s also saying “baby in Abbie’s belly”.  Let’s hope not!

Anyway, everything looked fine.  It’s heart rate was 171bpm, which she said was good.  My next appointment is in 4 weeks, and my next ultrasound is at 20 weeks.
Today Abbie had her 2 year appointment.  She’s 29.6lbs (80%), just over 36” long (over 90%) and her head circumference was 45cm (75%).  So she’s rather large for her age, but she always has been.  They asked if she was still using a bottle and I told them she was and they didn’t even say anything about it, which surprised me.  I’m not concerned about her using a bottle, because I know it’s her comfort item, but I thought they might be.  She uses a normal cup just fine, but she still likes her bottles of milk at times.  One of the questions I had to answer was if she was saying at least 50 words.  I had to laugh a little because my little motor mouth says at least 500 words.  Her favorite sentence right now is “I want just a little bit more.”
Now that our appointments are over, I know I’m a little more relaxed.  I definitely slept better last night than I have in a long time, but that might have been attributed to the fact that it was actually cool, so I wasn’t roasting to death.  =)