March 2015 – Schatzi

Getting induced at 40+9 or 40+6, +7, +8

The conflict with my brain:

For me, my earliest “might be” due-date was Monday, March 23rd 2015 (with a 27 day cycle and the first day of my last period being June 17th 2014) and for me, my real due-date was somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday, March 24th to 26st (with a 28 day cycle and the first day of my last period being June 19th 2014), that’s where the 40+6, +7, +8 comes from.

The early ultrasound in my 11th week spit out March 23rd as my due-date (that’s where the 40+9 comes from), my “might be” earliest due-date.

One thing I have very much learned in this pregnancy is:
next time I will give my OB the LP (last period) date, of which I know it was the first day, and not be influenced by what the doctor’s assistance tells me when my first day was. Especially because I’m such an organisation-nerd and keep an exact account of my period, I know my body and I know best.

I made the mistake of saying June 15th 2014 was my LP and my cycle is the average of 27 (There have been months where I’ve had a 30-day cycle). That gives us a calculated due-date of March 21st. And that calculated due-date now hunted me down, now that the induction talk comes up. Because, a doctor is always on the safe side and will want to induce at 40+7, latest at 40+10. And the only thing the doctor can rely on is that calculated due-date which was figured out 40 weeks ago. Unless the OB changed the date to what the early ultrasound figured out (which mine didn’t do because she said plus/minus a few days doesn’t matter). Well, it does matter if it comes to the induction talk.

Anyway, at first I thought it’s ok to get induced at ultrasound due-date +7 but the whole weekend before I didn’t feel comfortable at getting induced on March 30th. My inner conflict with my brain. Also because my mom carried most of her kids longer than 40 weeks (she got induced with my oldest sister at 40+10) and maybe we just carry a bit longer (who knows). My midwife came by on Sunday and we talked a long time and it made me feel a lot better.

So on March 30th my bubby and I drove to the hospital early in the morning and I told the doctor and midwives that I’d only like to get induced if it’s medically necessary (which, medically speaking, nothing was wrong this whole time). They checked me, checked the baby, called my attending OB who was on the way to the hospital already. All was good, enough amniotic fluid, the placenta still looks really good, the heartbeat on the CTG was good, the baby is moving lots, I feel good and have no symptoms like high blood pressure or water in my body.
So the only reason why they would have induced is because I was one week overtime and I asked if we could postpone it a few days. My attending OB wouldn’t let me go too long which I’m fine with, I don’t mind getting induced and I’m not a woman who absolutely wants that everything goes natural. The safety for my baby still is the most important.

My attending OB talked to me about the risks again but said everything looks very good, so he’ll give me two days, which is tomorrow, Wednesday, April 1st 2015. I felt a lot better and I just felt like I need to listen to my instinct and body and baby. Of course it can be that I’m getting induced tomorrow, it will take 30+ hours and I need a c-section but then I won’t have a crisis of conscience thinking “did my baby still need some time in my belly”. I hope. Who knows, maybe I’ll have a crisis thinking “should I have induced on Monday?!”.

I am happy I waited though and I’m totally ready for tomorrow (I’m nervous, that’s clear). I only slept four hours from Sunday to Monday (due to the time change here I really wasn’t tired) and hope (ha, we’ll see) that I can sleep better tonight because I’m ready and I want to get induced.

Fact is, going over your due date kind of sucks (when you don’t really know when your real due date is). You (well, I) worry about inducing too early, you worry about inducing too late, you just want to do everything right for your baby.

My 41st week baby bump story

How far along: 40 weeks + days
How much do I weigh: 62,2 kg, which means I gained around 13,5 kg (30 pounds) this pregnancy.

Belly size: Big, hard and heavy 🙂 Circumference 104 cm, Top to Bottom 46 cm

Baby Bump Week 41 - 40w6d — Baby Bump Week 41 – 40w6d

Belly button in or out: Even
Sleep: Very good, most of the time. If I get up it’s only once. Lucky me! But sometimes after I got up I can’t go back to sleep for hours.
Food (non) cravings: Nothing special, not that hungry.
Symptoms: For being high pregnant and about to pop anytime I have very less symptoms, hardly any. A little heartburn, my knees sound terrible when I do yoga.
Labor Signs: Hardly any, some pelvis pressure, some cramps. Nothing worth mentioning I guess. On Tuesday my attending OB checked me and noticed some blood, which might be my mucus plug. It was very less though and probably doesn’t mean anything.

I’ve been taking a bath every day and making hayflower steam baths a few days. I still drink three cups of raspberry leave tea daily. I do yoga daily, sit on my exercise ball at the dining table, walk stairs, go for walks. I also took a few Caulophyllum thalictroides D 4 pills, what the midwives gave me. Those are homeopathic pills which might cause contractions. Who knows, but no contractions at 41 weeks. I’m not forcing my bubby on having sex with me (although I’m bossy like that and would like to give it a try) because my true believe is that you cannot force labor. If I don’t have contractions I just don’t have them, why should they come from taking a walk or a bath.
I do things that are comfortable but don’t take my strength.

Maternity clothes: Ready to say goodbye to too tight pants. Can’t wait to buy new summer clothes in a few months.
Stretch marks: None
Miss anything: Nothing
Looking forward to: Meeting our baby-boy!!
Best happenings this week: Seeing that our baby-boy is doing just fine. The CTG on Sunday in the hospital was good, had another OB appointment on Tuesday and Thursday (the first male OB to examine me btw) and all was looking good. He checked me and the baby

Cervix: one finger fits through and it’s very soft
Blood pressured: 120 / 80
Amniotic fluid: baby has enough (more than 7 for sure)
Placenta: looks very good
Baby’s head: around 9,7 cm and tight in my pelvis
CTG: all good, baby’s heart-rate is 130 – 150 and he’s quite active. No contractions

Ultrasound - Baby-Boy 40+ weeks — Ultrasound – Baby-Boy 40+ weeks

On Tuesday my attending OB said that the hospital is quite busy this week and that he therefore made an appointment for my induction on Thursday, March 26st.

That would be 40+5 from the calculated due-date and 40+3 from the ultrasound (and my) due-date. He explained why they prefer to induce latest one week after the due-date, which I understand, but I asked him if we could induce on Monday, March 30th, instead, seeing the calculated due-date (March 21st) was always wrong in my mind, due to my irregular cycle and seeing that, in my opinion, my period didn’t start on June 15th (like I told my OB) but the 17th or even more the 19th (which would come out with a calculated & ultrasound due-date of Monday, March 23rd to March 25th).

He understood, said that’s no problem (seeing he’s only my attending OB he doesn’t know the details about my “history”). He looked at the ultrasound image from my 11th week where they figured out the due-date and said ok, Monday is ok 🙂 And seeing everything is fine with our baby, I’d like to give our baby-boy the chance to find his way into life by himself one more week.

My CTG on Saturday in the hospital was good, one contraction in 45 minutes – ha! The midwife also made another prenatal acupuncture for free 😀 I have two more nights where I can go into labor before getting induced. I’m quite nervous now…

And again, a big thank you to my Baby-Boy for this awesome pregnancy 😀 This time it’s final 🙂

My dear Baby Boy, we'll meet you soon — My dear Baby Boy, we’ll meet you soon

Movement: So so much! I can feel him moving around like crazy. That’s such a weird thought – knowing to have a human baby in the belly who’s all “done”, it’s unbelievable. He’s turning his back from left to right to left to right since Thursday evening (over a week now). He’s never done that. You’d think he’s ready to leave the nest (or he’s just feeling way too comfortable now).
Gender: Baby-Boy Bruno
Happy or moody most of the time: Happy and very excited and nosy! I did have some thoughts about how the pain of inducing will kick in and how I will handle it. Will it go from 0 to 100, will it take hours or days, will it not kick in at all? It’s a fear of the uncertain, a totally new experience – how will the pain feel and will I be able to handle it?!
Sports: Walks, daily Yoga

My second due date

My due-date according to the ultrasound in week 11 is today, March 23rd 2015, two days after my calculated date 🙂

I’m happy the swing didn’t break under my weight. You never know.
A very good thing about our baby might coming later is, the later he comes, the longer I have parental leave 😀 If he’s born tomorrow, the 24th, I first have to go back to work next year on March 29th because of all the easter holidays being in between.
Just random thoughts coming up after your baby is due…

My 40th week baby bump story

40 weeks

How far along: It’s my first due date 🙂 (my second according to the ultrasound in week 11 is March 23rd)
How much do I weigh: 62,4 kg (+ 13,6 kg / + 700 g this week / 30 pounds in total)
Belly size: Circumference 104 cm, Top to Bottom 44 cm, photo taken on Friday, at 39 weeks 6 days

Baby Bump Week 40 - 39w6d — Baby Bump Week 40 – 39w6d

Belly button in or out: Even / Out
Sleep: Getting up once (sometimes first at 5:30 in the morning), so, very good with all of the boppy pillows surrounding me.
Food (non) cravings: Nothing special, I can still eat lots, unfortunately no loss in appetite. I was really in the mood for chocolate on Tuesday. Lots of chocolate. So much chocolate!!!
Symptoms: The belly is getting so heavy, it’s hard to get up from the couch occasionally, especially after I was laying down on it 🙂
Labor Signs: Very less Braxton Hicks, nesting (which, I think, is not a labor sign seeing my due date can be any day), I’m a bit bitchy – the things my boyfriend does/says annoy me fast.
Maternity clothes: They are getting tiiiiight – it’s uncomfortable to sit and wear maternity panties and pants, I wish I could just go naked down there (but – another symptom – a lot of vaginal discharge)
Stretch marks: None
Miss anything: Nothing
Looking forward to: giving B I R T H. Let’s see, some of my “easy-to-remember” dates have already passed

~~03.03.2015 (I already have plans with a friend there though)~~
~~05.03.2015 (I have an appointment for a foot care there though)~~
~~15.03.2015~~
~~19.03.2015 – Two months after my birthday~~
~~21.03.2015 – Baby’s Due Date~~
23.03.2015 – Baby’s second Due Date, according to the ultrasound
25.03.2015
27.03.2015 – 5 months before my bubby’s birthday
30.03.2015

So there’ll be another zodiac sign with horns in our family. Our Baby-Boy might be determined, fiery, have executive skills, a born leader, impulsive, headstrong, opinionated, loyal, physical, driven, ambitious… Aries doesn’t match with Capricorn (me) or Virgo (the bubby) which I’m ok with, we’ll make it match. I have horns so it’s clear that the ram and the goat abut. But: Aries signs have excellent sense of humor, and they get along with almost everyone at the party (and they DO know how to party). Aries can be impatient, but we love them anyway because they are devoted friends, lovers and family members (aww) 🙂
Best happenings this week: On Monday I went to my fourth and last prenatal acupuncture. I got 12 needles – one in each hand, two in each of my knee areas, one in each ankle, one in each pinky right next to the nail (ouchie) and one on each foot. I walked into the delivery room at the hospital, the midwife looked at me and said “looks like the baby’s coming soon”.
She wanted to check me, I let her know that I’m having an OB appointment with my gyn that same evening, so she just checked how our baby-boy is laying, made a CTG and checked my urine. All good and I didn’t have contractions.
So, in the evening I had my second check for that day:

How far along: 39+2
CTG: all good
My Blood Pressure: 120/80
Cervix: 1cm dilated, soft
Baby’s weight: around 3100g (6 pounds 13 ounces)
Amniotic fluid: 11
Placenta: 95% intact
Baby’s head: around 34cm, not completely tight in my pelvis

My OB wanted me to get in touch with the OB who will be delivering our baby this same week, seeing she could still push baby’s head up a bit. Other than that she said the supply for baby-boy is all very good so there’s no need for inducing that soon. But that’s something the hospital and/or delivery OB will have to decide.

So I made the appointment with the baby-delivering-OB for Friday morning. I asked him to check me to see if baby’s head is tight so he first checked my cervix, 1cm and yes, Baby’s head is tight in my pelvis. Then he checked the Baby, he measured him around 3400g (7 pounds 8 ounces), the head around 34cm and he’s still got a lot of amniotic fluid, so he sees no reason for inducing (yay, I’m happy he sees it that way).
I have another appointment with him on Tuesday (40+3) where we’ll have the induction-talk and on Sunday (40+1), I’ll go and get checked by a midwife at the hospital where I will be delivering.

I try to find my peace with eventually getting induced which is hard. I try not to think about it and if I do think about it, I try to see it as ok, nothing bad, maybe even something good and helping my body to get ready. It just seems too planned and not natural. I don’t like that the doctors seem to be fixated on that one date, the estimated due date. For me, the estimated due date begins today and ends next Saturday, for me it’s an estimated due range of 7 days and not one day. I have an irregular cycle, my period doesn’t start from one day to another, my ovulation – no idea when that is. Setting an estimated time range for a baby to be born would take off a lot of pressure.

The OB also made a 3D color ultrasound of our Baby’s face, it was the best 3D I’ve seen, I could see our baby-boy and what he looks like! I even got a photo which might be the last in-uterus photo of our baby-boy 🙂

Ultrasound 39 weeks 6 days with his arm before his face

Movement: Still doing his regular gymnastics. He’s been really, really, really active on Thursday evening for a long time and all of the sudden I felt his kicks in my right side, so I assumed he turned his back from right to left. I asked the OB on Friday and yes, our Baby-Boy turned, at 39 weeks 5 days, from one side to the other. I’ve read a few weeks before that it’s not such a big problem for the Babies to turn but it’s very very unlikely that they will flip so that all of a sudden their head is not in the pelvis anymore. I hope he doesn’t get too excited to meet us and decides to make somersaults!
I think he turned back on Friday afternoon… I’m not sure now, I feel his kicks, it seems, everywhere.
Gender: Baby-Boy Bruno
Happy or moody most of the time: Happy and Bitchy
Sports: I’m lifting a lot of weight 🙂 Going for walks and did yoga once.

Baby-Bump Week 40 — Me giving kisses to a very photogenic baby 😉

Baby Baby Baby

I didn’t think my blog would turn into a mommy-blog so fast but, with being pregnant, the only things I can really think about are things concerning pregnancy and babies. Everything else seems to be so secondary now.

Baby’s Name

Well, a few days before our little boy should arrive we have still not agreed on a name for him. Well, we kinda have, but not really. My boyfriend knows I want my kids to have American names and not a typical German name. He’s still trying to get used to my favorite first name for our boy but still didn’t say “yes, that will be his name”. Our boy will have a second name too and I told my boyfriend he’s the one who’s allowed to chose that 🙂 It’s been the same name for months but now, all of a sudden though, he’s thinking of a different one… argh. I told him that, when I’m two weeks before my due date, I want to write our baby-boys name on my birth plan so that it will be spelled correctly, which I did. I wrote down our Baby-Boys full name, asked my boyfriend if he’s ok with it and he said YES, so… let’s see if that’s really his name.

Pregnancy Brain

Luckily, I didn’t really do a lot of silly things in my pregnancy, yet. I went to the hardware store a few weeks ago and saw this great deal on compost trash bags so I grabbed them. Why would I buy trash bags at a hardware store in the first place, but whatever. A few evenings ago I hear my boyfriend in the kitchen saying “WTF…” and I asked what’s going on? He just said he’s dealing with a never-ending trash bag and seeing I didn’t know what he meant he showed me what I bought.
Instead of 25 liter I bought 240 liter – 10 times the size we need. They really are never-ending! Anybody need 240 liter compost trash-bags?

For the first time in, I think forever, I’m wearing skirts and leggings in winter. I love skirts in the summer but as soon as the weather gets colder I will not wear them. I’m a jeans girl, a flares jeans girl. And leggings? You’ll never see me in leggings when I’m not pregnant. Now, being high pregnant, of course they’re probably the most comfortable thing to wear but I’m not a fan of my legs in leggings. Not at all. So I put on the skirt to make those leggings look a bit cuter.

I tend to spill my drinks on our couch. The photo shows my typical daily breakfast (orange, half banana, half apple, yogurt, spelt flakes, cereal, applesauce) with my red raspberry leaf tea which I spilled. Oh well.

Maternity Leave

My maternity leave has been great. I didn’t miss getting up and going to work once. I normally try to do something each day, also if it’s something little like cleaning the oven. I honestly thought I’d miss my routine days at work, that I’ll be bored so much every day but nope 😀 I did so much the last few weeks that now, one week before my due date I have to slow down a bit (well, I want to slow down a bit).

Fear

I’m a lucky girl. I’m lucky because my nine months of pregnancy have been great, all the examinations of our baby have been great and I don’t have any reasons to worry or be scared. I’m lucky to have an attitude of “what will be will be” and so, a few days before my due date, I’m not scared about giving birth.
I’m not fixated on my “ideal birth plan” because, how could I be? I have no experience at all so I’m just going to let things roll how they’re going to roll.
Sure, no PDA would be nice, but if I can’t handle the pain anymore, why not?
Sure, a natural birth would be nice, but if the baby’s in danger I’m happy for our revolutionary medicine and c-sections.
Sure, it would be nice if no body parts of mine get injured, but if something rips – it’ll heal. I’m really happy I don’t freak out right now and that my attitude has helped me to keep calm during my pregnancy.

Hospital Bag #3: bringing our baby home

I love those cute little clothes for our Baby-Boy Bruno, they are just too adorable:

As we assume our Baby-Boy will be born sometime in March and as we know the weather here can be either sunny and warm or snowy and cold, we need to prepare.

I packed a few body suits, two caps, tiny tiny socks and “shoes“, a blanket to wrap him in (if he wants), cuddly pants and a cuddly jacket. If it’s really cold (or if we are being told we need it) we’ll put him in the snow suit.

He’ll be wearing the cute little romper suit which says “Thank heaven for little boys”