I am sitting here, three days before your expected arrival date, being so impatient even though I know that I likely might not meet you for another almost two weeks (haha or so I thought!).
To kill time, I thought I would tell you a few memorable things about the past nine months. You are kicking away as I type, and it is the one thing I will miss terribly about being pregnant with you. But let me start at the beginning.
TTC
To no one’s fault but my own (and your brother’s), it took what seemed like FOREVER for God to answer our prayers for you. You see, your daddy and I were ready for you when TJ was a little over a year old. And while many many women can conceive while nursing, I am not one of those women. And your brother did not give up easily. We finally conceded that despite wishing and praying, we were going to have to wean TJ before you would be a possibility. I only tell you this because those months seemed to drag on forever. We got serious after his second birthday, and finally by about the end of September 2016 he was done nursing. He didn’t like it, but it was finally time to try to grow our family.
So you see, October came and was almost over when it was time for me to fly to Denver for an amazing opportunity to be part of the Top of the Class program at the NCBA. I knew I would be spending time with a good friend and we would *probably* have wine, so even though I had only had ONE cycle AND it was entirely too early for a silly drugstore test to come back positive anyway, I took a test just to reassure myself. And…….wouldn’t you know it—two super super faint pink lines!! I was in disbelief. And even though I know better than to disregard it as a “false positive” I think I was in denial too. Because I drank the wine anyway. And then three days later when I got home, I took another test. DEFINITELY two very pink lines. (please forgive me!)
First and Second Trimester
About three uneventful weeks went by of no symptoms and life continued as usual. I think I was still slightly in denial. But then OH MY LORD. Enter 24/7 nausea and vomiting. I am talking, wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-dry-heaving nausea. That continued for about…..eight weeks. Around week 15 I finally felt pretty good. I had about 11 weeks of feeling normal-ish, other than gaining weight like crazy. No doubt because all I could eat was toast, cheerios, pasta and potatoes.
Third Trimester
Week 26 brought the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. Right SI joint pain, or sciatica, lower-back pain—whatever you want to call it, it was absolutely debilitating, painful, relentless, and nothing brought relief. It was hard to walk, hard to sit, hard to move…..it brought me to tears at times. That lasted about ten weeks.
To add to the fun, on Easter day, around 29 weeks, I tripped on your brother’s shoe in the kitchen and broke my little toe on my right foot. OUCH!!!
Breech Baby Shenanigans
Right before week 36, I felt you move from cephalic to breech. Sure enough, when I checked at work, you were breech. I almost cried. You had been head-down for almost six weeks. I finally felt good….and now I was back to worried sick that you were going to be breech and I would have to have a c-section. So I gave it a week, then went to a chiropractor who used the Webster technique and aligned my hips to try to encourage you to somersault. I also did every move/stretch on Spinning Babies, put an ice pack at the top of my belly, talked to you, and prayed SO MUCH—basically everything anyone told me to try to get you to move back to being head-down. No luck.
So I scheduled a version at 37 weeks 4 days. I checked at work on Friday and you were still breech. Nicki came on Saturday and we did belly mapping and felt like you were still breech. She showed us a couple more tricks to try to get you to move. By Sunday night, I was pretty defeated because it had been almost two weeks and you still had not moved. I woke up Monday morning to get ready to head to the hospital for the version procedure. I was angry because I had had a very real dream that I woke up in the middle of the night and had felt you turn. But after feeling my belly I still felt like your head was in my right ribcage. So we headed to Scottsbluff and checked in to the hospital.
The nurse started the IV and hooked me up to the fetal heart rate monitors. The doctor came in with the ultrasound machine and the moment she put the transducer down we saw it at the same time—you HAD flipped over on your own and your head was down again!!! Praise God!! I cried happy tears!
So that was on June 19th. I still was instructing PiYo Live classes at The Body Shop in Hemingford, but no more downward-dogs for me. I didn’t want to do anything that might possibly make you flip over again.
I felt good now. On June 20, all afternoon and evening I had pelvic pressure and cramping, and my contractions were about 4 minutes apart, for HOURS, but they didn’t get painful. I went to bed that night SO disappointed. I think I was just having “sympathy contractions” though, because your cousin Charlotte was born on her “due date” the next day. Charlotte’s cousin Scarlett Gruber was born the next day, June 22, even though she was due the same day as you.
You can imagine I was getting a BIT impatient. I know you are probably not surprised. I was just so excited to meet you. And I felt HUGE.
It’s Birth Month!
Soon it was July. I was really hoping for a firecracker baby, but we spent all day swimming at your Aunt Jen’s parents’ house and nothing. As my due date rolled by, I wasn’t surprised. I was two days overdue with TJ, so my guess all along had been July 10.
I had what I hoped would be my last appointment at 39w6d on July 5th. I wanted my membranes stripped, but Dr. Bruner told me that your head was not even down engaged in my pelvis AND my cervix was not dilated at all.
I was again SO disappointed. I was starting to get nervous that I didn’t even seem close to delivering, and you probably know by now how I feel about inductions and/or c-sections.
I got put on the schedule to be induced on July 14th (I still was undecided about whether or not I was going to comply). My cervix was not ready at all, meaning I would have to check in on the evening of July 13th and it would be less likely that I would have a successful induction. I went home absolutely determined to do everything to try to bring on labor.
My due date came and went, and I mostly tried to keep very busy, along with resting when I could. Monday the 10th I went and did PiYo Live class with Micki. No luck.
Tuesday the 11th we went to Hemingford in the evening and went for a 4 mile walk with Micki and all the kids in our two double-strollers. It started to storm on us at the end, so we ended up jogging the last couple of blocks.
Check out Part II for the rest of the birth story!
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