In the Teens! and 37W Appointment Disaster/Rant

Just 19 days until my due date. Well, that's what I am saying at least.

If you go according to when I ovulated, it is only 18 days. Fertilityfriend.com says so. And, to be quite honest, I believe FF. I was charting my temps for MONTHS on that site. So, if anyone knows me, it's FF.

If you go according to one of my earlier ultrasounds, which I am, it is 19 days.

If you go according to my doctors, who refuse to admit that a woman can ovulate on any day OTHER than CD14, it is 21 days. Why is it that the doctors are the morons here? They refuse to change your EDD (estimated due date) unless an ultrasound shows that they are more than 1 week off. This has driven me crazy my entire pregnancy. Why can't they just give me the 3 days and SAY my EDD is 4/29. 5/1 is NOT right!!!

Oh well. Doesn't really matter. Baby will come when she comes. It's HER decision.

My mom's due date with me was April 29 too and I wasn't born until May 3. So, it's a very real possibility that my first born daughter will also be born on May 3. My 30th birthday. Creepy or cool? I don't know. ;)

I have been having a terrible time sleeping this last trimester and it's only getting worse. Last night I got up to pee 8 times. It's always right before I fall asleep too. I will get up to pee (and where is all this pee coming from?!) and then lie back down...5 minutes later I am peeing again. Sheesh!

My 37 week appointment this week was a complete disaster. First of all, I get there and as usual, I get very nervous. This is horrible to admit, but I feel like a little girl when I go there. I am so fat and ugly right now, and when I talk to people and they give me their undivided attention, I get really WEIRD feeling. I know they are looking at me and judging me and my face turns BRIGHT RED and I start shaking and sweating. WHY? I am almost 30 years old. Why do I still feel this way? So anyway, they take my blood pressure. It's 140/100. Nice way to start the appointment. They had me lie on my left side (very uncomfortable on these half bed examining tables with only a small sheet covering my nether regions and my bare arse sticking out towards the door while my left arm falls asleep) then they retook my BP. It was 98/63. Further proof that my nerves really affect my physiology. So, I guess that is good. My BP wasn't really elevated.

The doctor who I saw is very young. She doesn't look much older than I am. I have a very hard time trusting someone my age to be my Ob-Gyn. I guess that is agism, but so be it. She just returned from her own maternity leave, so I thought she may be pretty cool and understanding. She wasn't. She rushed me and really brushed off a lot of my questions. I hate it when they do that. This will be the doctor who is on call when I deliver. I guarantee it!

The week before, the midwife at the practice told me that baby's head was "right there", I was 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. Well this time, the doctor told me the baby's head was still high, I was BARELY 1 cm dilated and only 25% effaced. ***punch in the gut*** I went backwards?! Sigh...I was so excited about being 1 cm/50%. In the grand scheme of things, none of that matters. You can be 0 cm dilated and still go into labor within hours. It's just kind of defeating I guess. I think the doctor should have lied to me. ;) Of course, it's all a matter of perception/opinion and each person who checks you will tell you something different. Alas...

Next blow was that I have a yeast infection. Lovely. She gave me Diflucan to take. Look up Diflucan online and it says that pregnant women should not take it. I mentioned this to her and she said, "I wouldn't give you anything that would hurt your baby." Yep, I offended her. Heaven forbid a patient have knowledge and question their doctor.

FINALLY, as the doctor left the room to write my prescription (took her like 10 minutes to write this prescription) I took a look at my chart. At the top it had GBS + circled. Well, the week before I had been tested for GBS. It's a normal bacteria that live in the lower intestinal tract and/or vaginas of about 30% of the population. It causes no problems for the carrier, but can be fatal to babies if they contract it, since their little immune systems are so new. UM....why didn't they mention this to me?! Well, when she came back in I mentioned it and she said, oh yeah you will just need to be hooked up to an IV of antibiotics when you go into labor. No big deal.

Well, I am glad they think it's no big deal. But look up GBS online and you will get scared to death (yes, I know...stop looking online!!!). The odds are very small that the baby will contract GBS. Especially with the antibiotics I will receive while in labor. However, now my entire birth plan is screwed up. I had planned on laboring at home for as long as possible. I wanted to go to the hospital with little time to spare so they wouldn't hook me up to machines, slow my labor down, mark me as "failure to progress", administer Pitocin, which would lead to an epidural, which would slow the baby's heart rate AND the labor itself even more, and in the end, I would end up with a C-section. Yes, this is the worst case scenario, but it's the one my brain goes to first.

Now, I will have to go into the hospital as soon as my water breaks (if it breaks) or much sooner than I would have if it does not break. Well, how will I know how long this labor is going to last? I need 4-6 hours of being on the antibiotics before they actually work. I know that most first-time moms have longer labors, but I have heard of many who had quite short labors. What if I am one of those? I've been going to a chiropractor three times a week and one of his claims is that he can shorten your labor. I know of 3 other first-time moms who went to a chiropractor and none of them labored over 4 hours from start to finish. So now I am left with WISHING for a longer labor. That's just wrong.

Anyway, I am very much annoyed with this GBS+ outcome. It's kind of sent me into a sort of depression. I know nobody's birth plan ever works out the way they want it to, but I already feel defeated before I've even begun.

And I wish I could just stop stressing out over the labor. It's all I think about lately. I have been reading books, writing and revising my "birth plan" and basically going over and over all of the potential outcomes in my head. It's exhausting work planning for something that cannot be predicted. I just hope that EVERYTHING doesn't go wrong and at least 1 or 2 things go my way. Mainly, that I end up with a healthy baby girl. Gosh, it's surreal. This entire pregnancy is just a dream. The fact that I may come out of this a MOMMY is simply amazing to me.

**Oh yeah, another bad thing about the appointment was that I had gained 4 pounds in one week. Um...my weight gain is supposed to be SLOWING down at this point. If I don't gain another pound I will be happy. That will put my total pregnancy weight gain at 35 pounds (and we will ignore the 20 pounds I gained while TRYING to conceive). Please no more. Guess that means no more ice cream/potato chip binges (oops).**