Baby

Jen's Updates - Week 36

Sunday, March 23rd, 2003 - 4 weeks before due date!

Big news! The baby has dropped (I think)! No, I didn't drop the baby. Read more in the new 'Preparation' section.

Other news in this update: our childbirth classes, our first visit to the hospital, and the usual sections: symptoms, exercise, miscellaneous.

I know that I promised to make these updates shorter, but there are only four weeks left before the due date, and everything seems to be happening very fast now! Not to mention that Holly told me that she doesn't think I should shorten them. She likes reading all the details. Those of you who don't want all of the details, don't read them!

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Development

Midwife Visit

Movement

Symptoms

Exercise

Other Babies

Gifts

Names

Miscellaneous

Preparation

The baby has dropped! Look at the picture on Jen's Body page, and you should be able to see that my belly is lower than it was before. This is also known as lightening, because the woman often feels that the baby is lighter now that the baby is resting more in her pelvis than out front.

With first babies, this usually happens sometime in the last month. It can happen as late as labor itself, so it isn't really an indication that labor is happening anytime soon, just that the final stage of pregnancy has been reached. With subsequent babies, they usually don't drop until labor. It makes me a little melancholy that I've just experienced this for the first, last, and only time! Wow, I'm going to be such an emotional mother!

The way that I can tell that it happened is mostly because I can't see my belly button anymore. I mean, it barely existed anyway, but now I can't even see where it was! It has gone below my equator, out of my range of vision. I've also noticed that I've been feeling more pressure on my bladder, though I had attributed that to the amount of water that I've been drinking.

I never experienced the inability to eat large amounts of food, nor did I have any trouble breathing. I'm sure that my breathing is shallower, due to my reduced lung capacity, but I never really notice it. Both of those symptoms are usually relieved by lightening.

Oh, I'm also noticing right now that when I sit in my usual office chair, my belly is resting on my thighs. That's new.

Suddenly I feel a lot of pressure to get all of the baby stuff organized, and to get the car seat in the car, and to pack my hospital bag! Our deadline for all that stuff was this Sunday (today), so I guess I'd better get to work!

Childbirth Classes

On Saturday this week, we finally went to our childbirth class. It usually meets every Tuesday night for two hours, but we opted for the one day intensive class. We just didn't want to dedicate that much time to the classes when we didn't know what they would be like or what they would involve. Our experience with non-college classes in the past (such as our SCUBA certification classes) is that they generally move far slower than we are able to maintain interest, so we prefer to just do research on our own and do an intensive class for the review.

The disadvantage of having the class all in one day is that we didn't really get to meet other pregnant people. I mean, we met two other couples, but one six hour session is not really enough to get to know anyone well enough to be comfortable asking for their phone number. At least not for me. Both other couples were very nice, and funny! We laughed a lot today. Hey, maybe they'll stop by the web site and see this, and decide to email me! Please do!

The instructor was very sweet, and she really enjoyed talking about childbirth and labor and such. She had had three completely different birthing experiences with her kids (including being completely out), so she really believed in what she was teaching, having used it herself. That always makes me trust someone more, which is why I can't really understand having a midwife who had never had a baby. Then again, I guess every experience is different, anyway, so one person's experience is bound to be different than another's. Maybe it doesn't matter.

After the class, I am even more against an epidural than I was before. First of all, it involves needles, which I hate. If you get an epidural, your blood pressure drops, so you have to have an IV so they can give you fluids. I have never had an IV, and am not interested! If you have an epidural, you can't get up and walk around, which is what everyone says that you should do to keep labor moving at a good pace. Evidently our hospital doesn't use walking epidurals.

As I've said before, though, I have no idea how much pain is really involved. I haven't experienced much pain in my life, so who knows how I'll handle it. I'll be at the hospital, and they have epidurals there. Hopefully I won't need one, but it will be available. At the moment, I'm more afraid of needles than of pain, but things may change when I see how much pain is really involved!

Anyway, I had a good time at the childbirth class. I didn't hear much that I didn't already know, because I've done a lot of reading about the topic, so it was mostly a good review. A lot of it was just chatting or asking questions that I've wondered about. We did learn some breathing techniques, and I suppose that I'll try them, but I already have experience in controlled breathing techniques from Karate and Yoga, so I'm more likely to use the ones I'm comfortable with already.

We watched a childbirth video, which was interesting. Pretty scary, to see childbirth in all its details. Oh, speaking of videotapes, it turns out that the hospital does not allow videotaping of the birth, so that crosses that consideration off of my list. I had thought about it originally, but then I realized that I don't want anyone in the room other than Travis and the midwife, and to get a video, there would need to be someone else (because clearly Travis and the midwife are there to help ME).

The Hospital

So, we finally got to go to the hospital and see what it is like. It is perfect, it turns out! It only took about 10 minutes to get there from our house, and it is a tiny hospital. There are fewer people on staff there than in the engineering department at Wright State. It has carpeted floors, and doesn't smell like disinfectant! It looks (and smells) more like a posh hotel than a hospital, actually.

We were there for 7 hours today, and we didn't see any patients. Three of the labor and delivery rooms were being used, but evidently by people in recovery, because there wasn't any screaming. It was very calm and soothing, without any trauma or people rushing around. Completely different than I expected, and very reassuring!

There are four labor and delivery rooms, and they are really nice! They have hardwood floors, believe it or not! They have comfy chairs, including a rocking chair, and they are big enough for the inflatable baby pool that we'll have around in case I want to labor in it, or actually give birth in it. The rooms also have special labor beds in them, with a squatting bar on the end, and the bottom end of the bed drops down so you can labor leaning partially back, with your legs hanging off the table. No stirrups here!

You can stay in the same room for your entire hospital stay if you want to, which is really nice. No shuffling you around from a labor room to a delivery room, etc. Our instructor said that the special labor beds are great for that purpose, but not very comfortable for sleeping, so you can be moved to a normal room (which is about two doors away) for recovery if you'd prefer.

They bring in a cot for your support person, if you want him/her to sleep there with you. I suppose you could snuggle up in the single bed, but after childbirth I doubt I'll be feeling acrobatic enough to manage that. We aren't planning on staying overnight, anyway, but we'll see. We don't really know anything, yet.

I like the standard practices of the hospital, too. They do not remove the baby from the room, and will take him only if you are really not comfortable wheeling the isolette into the bathroom while you shower, and have no one there to watch him. They theoretically have a nursery, but our instructor said that it would be more likely that the nurses would just hold him at the nurses' station (directly across the hall), because babies are neat!

I was concerned about our hospital choice, because the other local hospital is huge and has a special 'Birthing Center' that you can use if you want an all natural childbirth, so it appealed to me. They also have all sorts of prenatal classes. However, this hospital is so small that it feels like its own birthing center, and you can have your labor however you want it.

Oh, we chose this hospital purely because this is where our midwives work, and we like them! I'm just glad that I like everything else about it, too! I'm happy with the hospital! Yay!

Top

Development

Midwife Visit

Movement

Symptoms

Exercise

Other Babies

Gifts

Names

Miscellaneous

Movement

He is still moving a lot, though he also refuses to move when I try to show anyone. Sometimes it feels like he grabs on to the inside wall of my uterus and twists it! It is a sharp feeling, though not really painful. I think that he may just be squinching his little toes in there.

In a related story, I had wondered why babies don't accidently cut through the amniotic sac with their surprisingly sharp fingernails, and this made me think that he was scratching it across my uterus (though of course I wouldn't be able to feel it through the sac). It turns out that their fingernails are completely attached to their fingers until they are born, and sometime after that, the tips detach. Interesting, eh?

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Development

Midwife Visit

Movement

Symptoms

Exercise

Other Babies

Gifts

Names

Miscellaneous

Symptoms

Insomnia

I still can't sleep. That's all I have to say.

Swelling

Just my belly, now. It must have just been a fluke few days, because my ankles are back to normal now, and haven't been swollen at all, even after standing a lot. That's good, because I was a little worried about developing varicose veins, which can be dangerous.

Heartburn

Lucky me, I've now experienced heartburn for the first time in my life. It started last week, actually, and happens in the evening, pretty much regardless of what I've been eating. It hits the worst when I lay down to sleep.

Cravings

This winter, I desperately wanted to eat snow all the time. Sometimes in the midst of an insomnia session, I would go outside in my night clothes and just stand there eating snow. It was delicious! Since the snow has gone away (it is 70 degrees here now) I've developed a taste for ice water, for the first time in my life. Prior to this, I just drank regular tap water. I've been eating ice (from the freezer), too. I think that this is related to my broken thermostat. I'm just so hot all the time that ice cools me down.

Rib Pain

Probably due to the new position of the baby, my ribs no longer hurt. Yay! He can still jab his little feet up there, but there isn't the constant pressure that there was just last week. Amazing.

Top

Development

Midwife Visit

Movement

Symptoms

Exercise

Other Babies

Gifts

Names

Miscellaneous

Exercise

I'm working out on the treadmill again, finally. The swollen ankles are what got me back to it. Walking is supposed to keep your blood flowing and prevent swollen body parts (except the belly, of course). I'm only going a mile and a half now, which takes 30 minutes at 3 miles/hour.

Travis also has taken to commanding me to do squats whenever he feels like it. He is worried about my swelling, too, and keeping your knees moving is very important for reducing that. He holds my hands for support while I do ten squats. He wants me to get used to using him for physical support so that it is natural during labor.

Top

Development

Midwife Visit

Movement

Symptoms

Exercise

Other Babies

Gifts

Names

Miscellaneous

Other People's Babies

Our friends Loopy and Gail (parents of Marenna) are expecting another child! He/she is due in September this year. Marenna is about 14 months old now, so they will be about two years apart, which seems to be a good age spread. Congratulations to the Rebischke-Smith family!

Top

Development

Midwife Visit

Movement

Symptoms

Exercise

Other Babies

Gifts

Names

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous

When Travis and I hug or try to get close enough to kiss, he says sadly, "Oh, the baby is coming between us already." He's so funny!

Web Site

Cindy (one of our midwives, for those who haven't been paying attention) walked past the childbirth education room while we were there, and saw us. She came in and said that she had been to our web site and that she really enjoyed it! She had already sent me email, saying so, but I hadn't had time to respond yet. It was fun, because then everyone in the class wanted the address. I hope that they check it out! Cindy (in the email) also answered a bunch of questions that I had posed in these updates. It was so considerate of her to take the time to read them at all, much less answer my questions! Do you see why I love them?

The updates have now been organized on the web site with consistent sections for each update, rather than the random style I was using. So, if you ever have the urge to find out what symptoms I had during my 16th week, you can just click directly to that section. Nifty, eh? It took forever, and I suspect that I'll be the only one who will really enjoy it, but it will make it easier for me to reread later. I also moved all of the random information about my life (like teaching and job stuff) to the end of each update, so the updates really are about the pregnancy.