Thirty Six Weeks

Unbelievable how long the last 36 weeks have been. Well, the last year and a half. I have never spent so much time just waiting. And it's no way to live, let me tell you. I've been trying to turn over a new leaf by spending more time living and less time waiting, but man, it's not easy if you're not used to it.

I had my dr's appointment today. Fundal height 36, perfect. I needed that. Having not heard the measurement last week and getting a new dr this week - one who measures under the clothes instead of over like my obg, I was prepared for the number not to match the week. But it did. Thank goodness for small miracles.

The new dr was dry as toast, but nice enough. He said it looked like my pregnancy had been going well. I corrected him by explaining the two hiccups - the cpc and breech position. He said what the other two or three dr's I've talked to about the cpc have said. That it's relatively common in terms of findings that "require a phone call," as he put it. I didn't bother mentioning that I hadn't received a phone call. He said he'd never seen it, by itself, result in a problem, he knows it's unsettling, he can't for sure say everything is fine. He confirmed that common practice around here is to not follow it up and that consistent fundal height growth is a good sign.

He's also the third doctor to say that breech is not a warning sign to be read into at all, even given the earlier cpc. He was more pleasant than my regular OBG, and explained the various reasons babies can be breech. I didn't have to play 20 questions with him to get information, he just offered it up. Pelvic shape, cord placement, where the baby happens to be when it gets too big to move much anymore...he said the real question is why more babies aren't breech.

But I found another blog recently of a girl just like me who had cpc's at her u/s, also a 2 vessel cord, and her baby ended up being breech. The doctors assured her the breech had nothing to do with chromosomal issues, she blogged about being relieved by that. But then the baby did have chromosomal abnormality. Not T18, something even rarer. Sure there are also stories I've found that go more like this: cpc + breech = healthy baby, but as the days wear on and new developments make themselves known I'm finding myself in a smaller and smaller universe of people who have been through it. It makes me so angry in the 'life's not fair' kind of way. Why me? Why do I have to worry about this sh---.

But then I also saw that one of my birth club members on B@by C3nter lost her little boy at 36 weeks to a cord accident and it broke my heart. And it made me feel guilty that I haven't been embracing every minute I have with this little one who seems to be growing and strong and probably just fine. In my self-pity I've neglected to look at the positives and to embrace what I have, what makes me lucky. As angry as I am that these remote possibilities are landing in my lap, my LO feels entirely compatible with life from what we know and from what we've seen and that makes me lucky and I shouldn't pass that over in search of a guarantee that will never come. Not even after he's born, I realize.

In true fashion, I continue to avoid anything 'normal' going wrong in my pregnancy. Half my birth class had GD, I didn't. And the percentages for things like pre-e and group beta strep are high relative to the percentages for CPCs and breech and I don't have those either. Why do I win the 1:4 and 1:10 risks and not the 1:100, or 1:1000+. Of course the rational side of me says there's no way I can just be prone to bad luck. I'm not actually more likely to lose when the odds are more remote, but the consistency of how things have worked out that way makes my head spin.

I never thought of myself as superstitious until I realized that the day I turn 39 weeks - the target date for a planned c/section, is Friday the 13th. Again with the odds. If I truly wasn't superstitious, I don't think I'd care...but as it stands, I might care. I haven't decided. Part of me thinks "screw it, it's just a day, probably won't be a very busy one, maybe I'll get some extra attention." But the other, very small part of me still insists "what if...." The bigger reasons I think I'll try to avoid that day are three-fold: (1) one of my co-workers said that statistically, more botched surgeries happen on a Friday than any other day, (2) even if Friday the 13th is perfectly innocuous in and of itself, the reputation of that date might make the doctors and surgeons more nervous or distracted, even subconsciously, so indirectly, it would be a bad day to go under the knife, and (3) do I really want my kid to have a friday the 13th birthday for his whole life? I know it won't always fall on a Friday, but still.

I think I will use my hesitancy as an excuse to make it a few days earlier. My dr is really going to think I'm a nutjob now.

My baby shower was yesterday. It was pretty fun. I really tried to let go and enjoy it and I did. Exhausting though, I was standing for most of the event. And thanks to my SIL expanding the invite list almost 3-fold, presents took a ridiculous amount of time. A few people had to leave in the middle, it was kind of embarrasing. And there weren't enough games. I love games at these things.

I got some great things - most of the essentials on my registry plus some things I didn't know I needed. It's not like a wedding registry where you know you're going to need a matching plate set at some point and you know you could really use that fancy mixer or serving platter. I have no idea what I need. I was trying to register for bottles last minute and was kind of bewildered by the 7 pages of choices. I eventually gave up. There was a bottle in the middle of my diaper cake I can use I guess. I asked a colleague about this most impossible of choices and she said babies can be really picky anyway so don't go nuts on a whole set, try a couple out, see what they take to. That's kind of been my theme for registering and shopping. Don't go overboard. It's so easy to think you need all the stuff they sell. But you don't. I plan to figure it out as I go as much as possible, rather than over-spending now.

That said, I am now the proud owner of a swing, a p@ck n' pl@y, a d!aper genie, a really nice car seat, more outfits for a 0-9 month old than there are days in 9 months, a baby tub, an exersaucer, blankets, swaddlers, baby toys and books, more decorations for the nursery than I can possibly fit in there (including TWO jungle animal mobiles)...it's overwhelming. I'm not totally sure what to do with it all. I am feeling serious pressure to get everything completely ready before he arrives because of the likelihood of surgery. I will not be able to do many last-minute decorations and cleaning and shopping when I'm in my first few days of recovery. But I still have not been able to bring myself to clip tags and do loads of laundry. I haven't been able to click "confirm order" on my almost $300 breast pump. I keep imagining how it would feel to have the nursery perfect for the arrival of a tiny person, to have his clothes folded neatly in their drawers and his toys opened and organized on their shelves, his swing assembled, his diapers stocked, only to arrive back from the hospital empty handed. I know it's normal to worry a little about this and at the same time, not normal to let it consume you. And people keep telling me I will always worry about something, like this is just some run-of-the-mill anxiety. But this isn't. This is the biggest fear I've ever had, the longest waiting period to resolution, and the most important stakes imaginable. This is not "normal" fear but it's also not "normal depression," and I am looking forward to being on the other side.

One of DH's cousins has had two children and in the course of birthing them, has somehow acquired every birth story known to woman. Medicated and not, c/section and not, interestingly, both of her kids were breech - she tried the version with both, it worked with the first and not the second. She was encouraging me to try it. She said the doctors are very good at taking into account the well-being of mother and baby and for her it was the best choice because her c/section recovery wore on for 6 weeks. She did add the qualifier that she's always been "slow to heal" from things, physically speaking. Weird. And she was around 40 at the time of her c/section. I appreciated her sharing her experience and reassuring me of how common breech is, but I still think the version is not for me.