D-Day Come and Gone

As of last Thursday, our little bean is officially overdue. I always assumed she'd be late so no one is surprised,  especially since I've had no real signs that labor is imminent. No real contractions, no plug lost, no dropping. Our NST this morning showed only 1 painless contraction and a very happy, comfortable baby. The closest I can get to pre-labor symptom spotting is an increase in Braxton Hicks and my breasts starting up the leaking routine again. Thankfully, her delay is giving us much needed time to work on the house. I can't believe I'm saying this at almost 41 weeks but we still have more electrical work to do and we haven't done the little extras like hanging towel bars, toilet paper holders or blinds. If you're standing on the street, you can see straight into the baby's nursery, not exactly a good thing when you want to walk around mostly naked. If baby wanted to give us another week, I would not complain.

Nooo more wires :(

The only really surprising thing about baby being overdue is probably how normal I feel. Yes I'm big, but I don't feel miserable, it doesn't generally hurt to move around and I feel pretty much the same as I felt in the second trimester, except I can no longer reach my feet. I've been making freezer meals, doing last minute shopping, washing and putting away baby clothes and generally trying to cram a whole pregnancy's worth of nesting and unpacking a house into a couple of days. Thus far I've got authentic Bolognese Sauce for 3lbs of pasta, Turkey Chili for 3 dinners with left overs and 2 lunches, Tuscan Chicken Soup for 3 dinners with generous left overs and Stuffed Shells for two dinners in the freezer. I'm planning on making some Baked Macaroni and Cheese with chicken and broccoli, some fresh green bean and mushroom casserole and maybe some meatloaf to add to the stash if I have time. 

My only real source of discomfort that I would love to see go away asap is not really pregnancy related. Our plumbers predictions of trouble with our laundry drain came true when I tried to run a heavy duty cycle and the poor little drain couldn't keep up. We were right in the middle of washing some really gross laundry so we'd used a more mainstream detergent than my typical chemical free variety. Since it started flooding the garage during the discharge cycle and I had to stop it to move all the electrical supplies and start bailing buckets of water, the clothes didn't get entirely rinsed out. I sent them home with my mother to rewash but one wash wasn't enough and there was clearly some soap left behind. When I tried to wear a long sleeved shirt from that load, I broke out into horrible, itchy allergic hives. While the pregnancy hormones are probably making it worse, it's unfortunately pretty standard for my skin so I can't count on it magically resolving after delivery. While the baby is being wonderful about letting me sleep, the hives wake me up at night when I catch myself raking at the rash on my arms and chest, even after taking Benadryl and dousing myself in Benadryl gel and Caladryl lotion. My belly was already itchy from so much stretching but thankfully seems to have been spared the hives thanks to the full panel on my maternity leggings. 

ugh

The rash aside, since 42 weeks is creeping up, the doctors have predictably started to talk induction. My only priority is to get baby here safe and healthy, but if I could pick, I would love to have a natural birth once baby decides she's ready. Her window of opportunity for that scenario is getting a lot smaller though, I'm 41 weeks this week and if she doesn't decide to make her entrance, we're going to have to evict her. I scheduled a second NST for later this week to keep an eye on her since we're officially overdue and if she continues to look happy and healthy, we'll give her until next week to come on her own. She's definitely head down, fluid levels look good and she's finally become so big that she's unable to turn anymore. Even if she wants to be stubborn, her body knows it's time too. Either way, whether it's on her terms or the doctor's, we're going to have this baby in our arms by the end of next week. 

Spinning Babies (Or Not)

Although our little lady was head down at our growth ultrasound, she had decided to wiggle into a transverse position by our first NST. Our fluid was totally normal, 23cm, but they like to see babies head down by 36 weeks so we agreed to give an external version a try. 

An external version is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Using their hands, the doctor tries to turn the baby into a head down position by pushing the baby through your belly. To make this easier, they give you a shot of muscle relaxer about 5 minutes before so your uterus should be relaxed and not contract. They also monitor the baby before, during and after the version to make sure the baby tolerated it well. 

Since I still have a good amount of fluid, I think they measured it at 20cm, our version was as easy as it could be. Baby looked great on the monitor, I got my injection, and it took 2 minutes with one hand on her tush and one on her head to nudge her from transverse to vertex. It felt like a slightly too firm deep tissue massage and I was a little tender in one or two spots for a couple days after, but I wouldn't call it painful or even particularly uncomfortable. The doctor was so pleased with how easily she turned that he said he'd have no problem trying it again if needed.

Unfortunately, baby girl is a stubborn little thing with her own ideas on position and timing. It only took her an evening to decide she liked things better from a different perspective and by the time we went into our NST the next afternoon she had settled into a full on, head up breech position. Whoops. My fluid was 18cm at this appointment, still normal. 

There are things I can do to try and turn her, like hanging off the couch on my hands and knees, but the reality is that she's going to do what she wants regardless. Sometimes I turn her and she stays for a bit, other times she flips back around and even though I'm 37+ weeks, I can still feel her turning summersaults. Our next NST and check up is in the morning and she's already been in 3 different positions today. It would be nice if she decided to be head down but I'm not going to over-analyze it if she isn't. I'll just keep my fingers crossed.  

Gorgeous Girl

After having our ultrasound canceled because the doctor was running behind, E and I were able to reschedule for 35 weeks 1 day. Normally the growth ultrasound isn't done until 36 weeks, but since our little peanut is bigger than average, S wanted us to have it done sooner.

I've known for a couple weeks now that baby girl his head down. She was riding high and transverse until one day I woke up with a waddle and what felt like a bowling ball in my pelvis. The second the ultrasound wand touched my belly, the doctor said "Wow! She's really all the way down there!"as if I hadn't noticed lol. So for now, she's in a vertex presentation, head down and facing my spine, ready to go.  It was tough for them to get a shot of her face but they managed to snap one for us and we haven't been able to stop looking at it.

Our gorgeous girl

The doc also noticed, as everyone has, that I seem to have a lot of amniotic fluid. I'm right at the high end of the normal range but don't have any of the issues associated with having "too much" fluid. High fluid levels can come with some pretty scary worst case scenarios like birth defects, placental abruption, premature membrane rupture and still birth. With mildly high fluid levels you might see a smaller baby who doesn't turn head down, since they have more room to move, putting them at risk for having the cord deliver before the baby and cut off their oxygen supply.

Thankfully, baby girl looks perfect and it appears that a slightly higher fluid level might just be my normal. Far from being small, she's right on track for her high growth curve. With a current weight estimate of 6lbs 9oz, the 82nd percentile, she should be about 8-9lbs at birth as predicted. And as I've already said, she's definitely head down with that big noggin' lodged against my cervix like a cork.

Just in case, we're going to have a NST at our regular appointment to keep an extra close eye on our girl and make sure everything continues to go well. We already had an NST when she took a longer than normal nap and she had perfect, textbook tracing so they don't anticipate any problems.