Okay I’m getting super excited. Our place is in complete disarray, so we are not ready. But I’m getting excited. I don’t have a rainbow baby, but tempering expectations and general fear has been a big part of the pregnancy for me given how many years we’ve been at this.
Over the weekend it finally dawned on me that it wouldn’t be just David and me anymore. We’ve been together since 2007, married since 2011, so we’ve had a lot of time to get to know each other. Walking down the hall with him is the best. Driving places with him is the best. Movie nights are great. Eating at places where the food is delicious is amazing, and eating at places where the food is disappointing is super fun. Even the fight we had this morning over de-cluttering was entertaining for me. He hated it and thinks I’m a dirty hoarder. But I think we have a good thing going.
I’ve been drinking a lot of smoothies to help with the blood sugar. Starting the day off with a broccoli, kale, banana, and apple smoothie is pretty good for the metabolism. “Get away from me, your breath is awful,” he says, when I’m drinking it. “That smoothie you drink actually makes me love you less,” he declared this past weekend. Luckily he casually followed that sentence up with, “But I love you so much that it’s okay to love you less.” I don’t know if I got the exact words right. I think he phrased it more eloquently, which is embarrassing because I’m the aspiring writer, and he was just talking. But the gist of it was there: we have some wiggle room in our relationship. I’m thinking that wiggle room is going to come in handy as we welcome a new person in.
38 weeks means the baby is fully cooked. The best practice recommendation is that the baby comes out at 39 weeks and 40 weeks at the latest. A study of babies who were induced at 39 weeks versus ones who came out at 41-42 weeks revealed that babies who came out earlier were lower risk of C-section and overall had less complications or NICU requirements. So we plan to pick an induction date to make sure the baby is out at 40 weeks. I met with my least favorite ob-gyn yesterday, and she’s the one on-call for the last possible day. Luckily she has grown on me, so we are going to pick a date that…that…I don’t know. David wants to pick the latest possible date so we can continue to clean, but I am still worried I’m going to mess something up. So we’ll have to talk it over.
Here’s something else that is odd. Because we are considered high-risk (we’ve been high risk since the beginning, because of the IVF and my age), we now have weekly appointments at the ante-natal center. They measure the amniotic fluid and do a non-stress test for the heartbeat. BUT THEY DO NOT MEASURE THE BABY’S SIZE. They’re already there, looking at everything, so I don’t understand why they do not do this extra step. I’m especially annoyed they do not do it, because I am controlling the gestational diabetes with diet and exercise, but I know for a fact the devices that measure blood sugar are faulty. I did my own experiment where I pricked blood and measured using three different devices for a week, and they all threw out different numbers, and then when I did more research I learned they only have to be within +/- 20% range. My blood sugar numbers are close enough where if the device is 20% off, I should be on insulin. I’m sure I’ve written about this before. Anyway, all the high-risk facility would have to do as an extra check to know that it’s not affecting the child is to tell me how big she is every week. But they only measure every four weeks, even though I’m there being probed every week. Anyway, I’d like to know how big a watermelon I’m about to push out.
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