A year's worth

July 2, 2010: I was a phone call from the RE's office.
July 1, 2011: I discovered my feet.  My mama is very, very nostalgic today.

The end game strategy

I had an OB appointment this morning and a fetal heart monitoring (non-stress test). 

Turns out that my body got started on this birthing thing a few weeks ago but nothing has changed in about 3 weeks.  So, the OB wants to take action.

Since she'll be in the hospital on Monday we are going to go in on Sunday night and start inducing!  They'll give me cervidil on Sunday night and some drugs to help me sleep.  At 6:30am on Monday I'll start pitocin.  If all goes well little M will be born Monday afternoon/evening.

I had feelings of "don't want to do that", realizing that I had developed a little scenario in the back of my mind about waking up with contractions, waking up Dh, laboring at home for a while, etc.  I guess I also had kind of wanted something about this pregnancy to start "naturally", as if it was meant to be.

But that's silly.  "Meant to be" makes no sense.  Just because something is random does that mean it was meant to be?  Was my miscarriage "meant to be"?  Was the tsunami and earthquake in Japan meant to be since it happened "naturally"?  Obviously the answer will depend somewhat on your religious leanings.  But for me, the answer is "no".

An induction, in many ways, makes life a bit less stressful as we go into this transition.  Part of what has been really hard on me this last week has been the anticipation and let-down.  Every morning I wake up a bit disappointed that I didn't go into labor.  And I have to psych myself back into enjoying what might be my last day of pregnancy.   

It looks like I have two more nights in my own bed before I have my baby!!!  I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am.  Little M will be here soon!!!!

Good and Bad

Good: The OB this morning said that M's herky/jerky fish-out-water fetal movements are normal neurological development and she'll do this sometimes when she's a newborn too.

Bad: I think I might have a UTI; definitely I didn't drink enough water yesterday and that's been a little funky on my bladder.

Good: The OB said that we don't have to come to the hospital with a birth plan, or if we want, just make the birth plan a list of requests or things about us that it'd be nice for the nurses to know.  I was starting to think I am weird not to have strong opinions about the labor & delivery.  I keep thinking it's better if I don't make any specific plans or get my hopes set on any specific birth experience.  The OB kind of confirmed that this is totally ok.

Bad: I got to work and found out that one of the freezers in a shared lab space 4 floors away broke, maybe a week ago, and we lost ALL of our samples for DNA research.  This includes ALL of the samples for one of my graduate student's PhD project.  She spent all fall collecting them and has a fellowship for this spring to do the genetics work, which is now completely ruined.  Oh, and last week, someone in another lab accidentally threw out all of her specimens for a subset of her project that were stored in another freezer.  She hasn't completely lost it yet, which is amazing.

Good: Thanks to the readjustment in my priorities I'm mad about it but not angry to the core, as I would have been a year ago.

Bad: We have to clean out a really disgusting and stinky broken freezer.

Good: Since I'm pregnant I can't help.

Funny:  M had hiccups this morning and again this afternoon.  What a very weird thing...  

Little Rocky

Dh is in a frantic mode getting ready to leave on Thursday.  He has to organize a lot of things and take a lot of equipment with him, finish up lots of stuff before he leaves, etc.  The man is wonderful, but he's pretty high stress.  So this is a high-stress time with lots of cursing.  I'm pretty used to it and know what to expect.

That said, I knew it was a big deal for him to take the time to go with me to the doctor's today. 

I had made an apt with a new ob since the place I went to before was wrought with bad miscarriage memories, and to be a bit on the snobby side, was a bit grungy.  The new place is in a city over from where I live but the doctors deliver at the hospital near my house.  The other city is pretty fancy with lots of rich people, so I had a guess that this was going to be a really nice place.  And that it was.  Shiny and new and filled with nice customer service.

How strange that two doctors offices within the same insurance network can be so freaking different.  And depressing for that matter, but that is an entirely different topic...

We met with the nurse practitioner today, and she was great.  We talked a lot about prenatal testing, health history, lifestyle, etc.  I felt pretty bad when she asked me what I had for dinner last night and I couldn't  remember.  Well, I remembered a little later that I'd eaten a snickers bar and then a handful of crackers, but I did not share the snickers bar part.  I have been eating really well lately until yesterday!  At least I had eaten a wonderful breakfast that she gave a thumbs up to.

And then we went to do a sonogram.

Now you know you are an infertile when you are expecting to have to undress from the waist down for a sonogram.  I kept wondering why she had me lay on the table fully dressed.

And then she went to untie my wrap-around skirt and it dawned on met that I was going to have my first belly ultrasound!!! It was SO nice not to have to get naked.  And given that I'm in the progesterone suppository phase, I was a little concerned about the gross factor (and the fact that dh was seated with a perfect view of the crotch area).

She puts the jelly stuff on my belly and dh gets up to get a better view.  And there it was!!!  The giant gummy bear!!!  Dh was so cute, he was smiling and totally freaked over how it was swinging its arms around like it was playing some batting game like my kitty does.  I couldn't see the heart beat from where my head was, but dh could and the nurse said everything looked great. 

And after I asked, she said that the miscarriage rate at this point is around 8%.

We walked out and dh said, "well, it's really starting to look like we might have a baby!"

And I kind of feel like that too right now.  Maybe, just maybe this really is going to work.

The baby has its first test soon though, as we decided to do the CVS test.  I had nightmares about it all last night, but hopefully those will go away (yea, right).  I need to call to make that appointment....

love, inB