11 Weeks To Go

So, I had my last monthly doctors appointment yesterday! I can't believe that I'm down to every 2 weeks visits now! The baby seems to be growing right on schedule. It was a pretty productive visit and I was able to get some questions answered.

The greatest news was that I passed my glucose (gestational diabetes) screening!!! YAY!!!!!!! I HATE that test! It was sooo hard for me to drink that drink. It seriously took me about 5 minutes to drink the 10 ounce bottle and I thought multiple times that I was going to throw it up! That would have sucked! But I took it all and I passed! When I was pregnant with Michael, I wasn't so lucky to pass this test, so I had to go and do the next one. That test takes 3 hours and you have to drink twice as much every hour and have your blood taken and tested each time you drink the drink. It sucked!!! So I was very relieved to pass the one-hour test.

I've also only gained 10 pounds so far, so I'm pretty proud of that. Hopefully I can keep the weight down for the rest of the time. My blood pressure was a little high, so the doctor is having me start taking some baby asprin to see if we can keep it down and avoid Pre-Eclampsia. I get to start doing kick counts to make sure he's still active...like that is even a question!

The biggest questions I had were about how I was going to birth this baby! For those of you who don't know Michael's birth story, and for the sake of recording it, let me fill you in!

Alright, so I was about a week and a half late so we decided to induce labor. So on February 28 at 10:30 p.m. I went into the hospital. I hadn't started to dilate so they did a Foley (sp?) catheter that they inserted into my cervix (sorry to those uncomfortable with the word cervix) to get me dilating. I remember the nurse was really mean/short with me and I was talking too much or something so she gave me a drug through the IV that made me sleep. I don't remember how much longer, but I woke up in the middle of the night because I could tell my water had broken a bit and the foley had fallen out (It's supposed to fall out at 3 centimeters). Funny thing, I woke Nathan up and told him I thought my water had broken and he just rolled his eyes, shook his head, and was like, "I'm sure it hasn't Amy. Just go back to sleep." So I called the nurse in and she checked it and confirmed my suspicions. A little while later I started having contractions and Nathan gave me the same reaction. "no, Amy, I'm sure it's not." I think he was nervous or something.

Anyway, so they started me on Pitocin closer in the morning and things started getting more tough. I remember my mom and mom-in-law (cathy) coming in to the room that morning. My Mom was awfully excited and gitty. Cathy was my "doula" or helper. She's a certified mid-wive so she was a GREAT help and really helped coach Nathan in how to massage my back and the types of positions to move around in to help with the pain of labor. I was dilated at a 5 for a while when the pain was getting to be too much. We were really trying to avoid an epidural so I got some narcotic or something that helped relieve the pain. That worked for about an hour before it wore off. This is were it really started to get fun.

So I got another dose of the narcotic and it didn't work as well as the first, so I decided, what the heck! Give me the epidural! So they gave me the epidural (by this time, I think it was around evening or just before) and I felt some relief, but only on one side. Around this time Michael had turned so we were spine-to-spine which resulted in back labor for me. I wasn't progressing and was stuck at a 5, so they were turning the pitocin up and up. I don't remember the actual pain, but I remember gripping the bars on the bed with all I had! It hurt sooo bad! We waited for an hour before we tried the epidural a second time. By that point the pitocin was up all the way and I still wasn't getting past a 5. So I got the second epidural and felt the relief immediately! Oh, it was wonderful!! I couldn't feel a thing!

We were really hoping the epidural would allow me to relax and continue progressing, but it didn't. I never dilated past 5. At around 9:00 that night we decided to do a C-Section. At 10:15 (24 hours after checking into the hospital), Michael was born. I don't remember much because I was so tired and a bit drugged, but I remember them showing him to me over the blue tarp and seeing that he was blue. He had swallowed some Meconium (poop while still in the womb) and had a hard time breathing, but they gave him some oxygen and he was just fine. He was in my room less than an hour later.

So that's his birth story, and now that we're having our second baby, we're kind of wondering how this one is going to come into the world! The doctor who delivered Michael told me a few days after the birth that my chances of being able to deliver a baby vaginally weren't very high. My doctors I'm seeing now have confirmed that. I think that just the fact Michael was a small baby and not huge (7 lbs, 4oz, 19 inches long), and my body wasn't capable of birthing him, they don't think I'd be able to do it with any of my other children.

I'm really leaning towards just scheduling another c-section, which is really surprising me! I feel like the last few months I've kind of been preparing myself for the idea of another c-section, and I'm becoming more and more okay with it. Especially after my visit yesterday. I'd heard some rumors saying that if you've had a c-section previously, the doctors would not induce you. They'd let you go over your due date no more than a week, and if you hadn't gone into labor on your own, they'd do a c-section. The reason for this is that a induction is hard on the uterus and they don't want to make the risk of uterine rupture any greater. Turns out this rumor is true, and considering the fact that I didn't go into labor on my own with Michael and was more than a week late, I'm thinking I'm probably going to have a c-section anyway. I think I would handle it better if I made the decision to have the c-section, instead of being forced into it because I hadn't started labor yet. So, anyway, I'm thinking of just scheduling a c-section for Nov. 9th rather than waiting it out for the full week afterwords and possibly having a c-section anyway.

So, that's whats going on. This post ended up being quite a bit longer than I had intended, but I'm glad to have some major questions answered and have a general idea of what's going to happen. It's also nice to think that by Nov. 9, I will definitely have a baby in my arms!!!