Betsy Bailey

Well, no July babe for me. Today I'm 41w3d. But I feel in loads better shape mentally after my midwife appointment last night. The appointment was actually scheduled for tonight, but I called her and asked if I could see her a day early.

1. I wanted a cervix check.

2. I badly needed a pep talk.

She came over and hung out with us for 2.5 hours! It was exactly what I needed.

(By the way, at my last OB appointment the doctor spent – at most – 5 minutes with me and didn't even touch me – the physician's assistant in training did all the measuring and checking for fetal heart tones and she didn't even palpate for position or anything. The conversation with various members of the staff was along the lines of "No baby yet? What's taking him so long?? When are you going to have this baby???" Between that and the hospital for NSTs, I was letting myself slide into that way of thinking – that something is so WRONG with me or the baby. And it just feeds my fears.

Don't get me wrong, I like my OB well enough – she's a neat lady and far more granola than most. But the bottom line? The standard of allopathic maternity care SUCKS in this country. At some point we really need to stop putting up with it. I'm glad my girls are witness to the fact that there ARE alternatives.)

I was a little annoyed with myself for caving on the cervix check (this was the first one I requested this pregnancy), but I wanted some idea of favorability well before my OB appointment on Friday. As it turns out, I am 2 cm, 60% effaced. Cervix is anterior and baby is 0 station. I was thinking about starting cohoshes today, but after getting the cervix data… nah. My body still has some work to do before this boy is coming out. And there just doesn't seem to be any valid reason yet to rush this.

With that said, based on my past labors where I have very long early labor stages (12+ hours) just getting to 6 cm and 100% effaced, my midwife suggested that I may just have the type of labors where I go into labor at 2 cm and early labor does the rest of the work. It makes for long labors, which sucks being me, but still it's a perfectly normal, healthy pattern.

She also suggested that one reason for all of this is because I generally have a long cervix and it takes awhile to get prepped for birth. She was like, that is NOT a bad thing. You have healthy uterine tissue! I just love her. She's so nurturing without even trying.

Anyway, I was glad I had the cervix check. It definitely made me stop expecting labor to start any moment which is good for my sanity.

Overall the midwife was so reassuring about my health, about Jake's health – reminding me of all the stuff I KNOW intellectually, but just needed to hear (40 weeks is arbitrary number, readiness for birth is a developmental milestone; not all babies are ready on the exact same day, etc.). He's still pretty darn active – he was rolling around and kicking like crazy when she was measuring me, checking heart tones, etc. She said, I don't need NST graphs to tell me this baby is doing very okay right now. (Yes, I feel the same way!)

Oh, and this is a COOL thing! Every once in awhile in the last month or so, I notice this funny little pulsing movement. It's VERY quick and measured – and you can see it through my belly. Ever notice that with your in utero babes? I've said to DH a couple times, "WHAT is this movement? So weird – it's almost like feeling him breathe."

Well, turns out it IS breathing. Not real breathing of course but practice breath movements. The baby was doing it last night while my midwife was palpating for position. She said that is a REALLY good sign of health/readiness – they look for that on ultrasound when doing BPPs and if he does it, it's like 2 points in his favor kind of thing.

It's so neat when he's doing that and I can lay my hand on his back and watch it rise and fall with his little practice breaths. I feel very connected to him during those times and can imagine what it will be like when he is (finally) out.

So that's where I'm at. Feeling better mentally than I have in days. Thinking about my blessings and counting them. Happy. After all, Jake's birth day gets closer every day that goes by, right?

PS: I'm 10 days past my due date, I reserve the right to have a mood swing back into craptastic at any moment…

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