milestones of a sort
Feb. 16th, 2006 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanI had a checkup this morning. It was uneventful. Gained three pounds, heartbeat (baby's) and blood pressure (mine) were normal. Got blood drawn to re-check my thyroid. Midwife felt my cervix and declared it still long and closed. She said that baby's head has moved down into my pelvis a bit, which might explain some of the hip and back pain, plus the constant needing-to-pee feeling.
It felt more momentous than it really was, because I thought that this point (32 weeks) was the point at which I had my last checkup with Isaac. But, I just went back and found my LJ entry about same, and I was wrong -- it was 33 weeks. In fact, that appointment was exactly one week before Isaac was born. Not that we knew that at the time, of course. It was a pretty routine appointment back then too, with the midwife telling me "you're just sailing through this pregnancy." (She jinxed me! ;) )
Anyway, aside from that mistake on my part, the point is, it still feels kind of like a milestone. If I make it to my next checkup two weeks from today without having given birth, I'll have gotten further in the pregnancy than I did with Isaac, and that feels like a big deal. I commented to today's midwife that there are a lot of things I never did the first time around that I'm hoping to do this time -- like packing a bag for the hospital in advance, making an actual birth plan, that kind of thing. And there are things that happened during my labor with Isaac and immediately after he was born, that I didn't know whether those were the standard way of doing things, or unusual because of him being premature. I asked her about a couple of them (things like cutting the cord, putting the baby on mom's belly as soon as it comes out, etc.) and she confirmed that most of those were done differently from usual with us, and if Cosmo doesn't come early, we can do those things the more "natural" way.
So it was interesting, discussing Cosmo's birth with her, how in some ways I feel like a pro and in other ways like a first-timer. That's certainly unique. We talked a little bit about my "birth plan" or what expectations/desires I might have for the process. I don't really have anything major or concrete, certainly nothing like the level of detail that a lot of people put into their birth plans. I have some music that I plan to bring along, etc. I expect to do it without pain medication, just as I did with Isaac; and in the very unlikely event that I yell out "Give me drugs!" in the middle of labor, I will trust my mom to decide whether I really mean it or not. I don't really think that's going to happen though. Honestly, despite all that was weird/scary/stressful about Isaac's birth, the actual physically pushing him out of my body part was not too bad, and I'm really not worried about that part of Cosmo's birth either. (Well, except for the part where, if Cosmo stays inside longer than Isaac did, s/he will be bigger. But second babies are bigger in general anyway, and still are supposedly easier births in general.)
Anyway, in summary, everything is fine. And I just have to deal with this weird cognitive dissonance, which will probably get stronger and stronger the closer I get to 34 weeks. There's really a big part of me that is convinced Cosmo will arrive in two weeks, but an equally big part that has confidence in my/our ability to go full-term. So it's weird. But there really isn't anything to do except wait and see. :)
It felt more momentous than it really was, because I thought that this point (32 weeks) was the point at which I had my last checkup with Isaac. But, I just went back and found my LJ entry about same, and I was wrong -- it was 33 weeks. In fact, that appointment was exactly one week before Isaac was born. Not that we knew that at the time, of course. It was a pretty routine appointment back then too, with the midwife telling me "you're just sailing through this pregnancy." (She jinxed me! ;) )
Anyway, aside from that mistake on my part, the point is, it still feels kind of like a milestone. If I make it to my next checkup two weeks from today without having given birth, I'll have gotten further in the pregnancy than I did with Isaac, and that feels like a big deal. I commented to today's midwife that there are a lot of things I never did the first time around that I'm hoping to do this time -- like packing a bag for the hospital in advance, making an actual birth plan, that kind of thing. And there are things that happened during my labor with Isaac and immediately after he was born, that I didn't know whether those were the standard way of doing things, or unusual because of him being premature. I asked her about a couple of them (things like cutting the cord, putting the baby on mom's belly as soon as it comes out, etc.) and she confirmed that most of those were done differently from usual with us, and if Cosmo doesn't come early, we can do those things the more "natural" way.
So it was interesting, discussing Cosmo's birth with her, how in some ways I feel like a pro and in other ways like a first-timer. That's certainly unique. We talked a little bit about my "birth plan" or what expectations/desires I might have for the process. I don't really have anything major or concrete, certainly nothing like the level of detail that a lot of people put into their birth plans. I have some music that I plan to bring along, etc. I expect to do it without pain medication, just as I did with Isaac; and in the very unlikely event that I yell out "Give me drugs!" in the middle of labor, I will trust my mom to decide whether I really mean it or not. I don't really think that's going to happen though. Honestly, despite all that was weird/scary/stressful about Isaac's birth, the actual physically pushing him out of my body part was not too bad, and I'm really not worried about that part of Cosmo's birth either. (Well, except for the part where, if Cosmo stays inside longer than Isaac did, s/he will be bigger. But second babies are bigger in general anyway, and still are supposedly easier births in general.)
Anyway, in summary, everything is fine. And I just have to deal with this weird cognitive dissonance, which will probably get stronger and stronger the closer I get to 34 weeks. There's really a big part of me that is convinced Cosmo will arrive in two weeks, but an equally big part that has confidence in my/our ability to go full-term. So it's weird. But there really isn't anything to do except wait and see. :)
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 07:52 pm (UTC)I know how you feel.
We went into this pregnancy, really blase and relaxed about the whole thing. After all we'de done it twice before, with no problems. We knew where we were having it, how the brith was going to go roughly. Etc, etc.
And then the Ultrasound Technician told us there were two in there. Instantly we were brand new parents again with no idea how things would go. It's a really weird feeling to go through in your third pregnancy. ;-)
PS Glad everything is fine with Cosmo.