Wednesday, May 18, 2011

the big baby report

so my thoughts are all higgeldy piggeldy right now, but i will try to put them in some sort of order.
monday we went to get the ultrasound of simba to see how big s/he is. turns out simba's waist measures 34.6 centimeters. i don't really have a clue how big that is. we were kind of worried we might find out the sex of the baby, but there is so much baby and so little room, i couldn't tell what we were looking at. one thing we did learn is that simba has a lot of hair on his/her head. which is interesting, considering marley was a bald baby. so i think, and i have no logical basis for this, that simba is going to have dark hair like ben's.
tuesday we went to the doctor to get the results from the ultrasound and talk about birthing options. turns out simba really is a big baby. s/he's measuring in at 7.4 pounds, which is between the 75th and 90th percentile. yep. it's a big one this time. i also got checked to see if my body has made any progress at all towards labor. nope. none. and we talked abut my feet swelling. it turns out i have developed gestational hypertension. my blood preasure has been slowly going up, but if it gets any higher this baby needs to come out stat. right now i am ok, but according to the doctor, and i'm just summerizing here, i need to sit the f*ck down and relax. if my blood preasure goes up, it will be an immediate c-section, no questions asked. apparently high blood preasure ages the placenta. if it gets overly aged, simba can no longer get the nutrition s/he needs. so, while i have difficulty just sitting around, i am a terrible patient (just ask ben), i will be doing that very thing. because however simba is born we do not want it to be an emergency situation.
so that brings me to the conclusion that all signs point to a c-section this time around. this is hard for me to admit b/c i so badly wanted a vbac. a lot of my friends are into the all natural birth plan thing, so much so that i believe they would judge me for having a c-section. i've never really been that worried about whether or not my labor was all natural. to me what matters most is that the baby is born and safe and healthy. but i would be lieing if i said i wasn't scared. i mean i don' t even like to take tylenol when i have a headache. and here i am opting for surgery. i never really talked much about marley's birth b/c to me the important thing about marley's birth was marley. but it was scary. i had medicine go wrong. i was in labor for a very long time and my body never progressed. and then at 3am i was wisked into the surgical room and marley was taken out as fast as possible. during the surgery i couldn't really breathe, the anestheologist was waiting to put me under should anything go wrong, and i was strapped down to the table. all o f which made it kind of scary. and was promptly forgotten as soon as i held marley in my arms.
i know logically this c-section will be comepletely different. i won't have been in labor, i won't be exhausted, and i won't be as stressed out and scared, hopefully. but it is still a major surgery. for a minute, think about all the ways you use your stomache muscles. try to stand. try to sit. hell, try to do just about anything. but even knowing that, i think it is the best option right now. even if i were to go into labor naturaly, who is to say that i wouldn't stall out just like last time? i think labor AND srugery is the worst possible choice.
my doctor is amazing and i have total faith in her abilities and her judgement. she is a no nonsense type of lady, but at the same time very comforting. when she told us yesterday that a vbac wasn't looking good and i started to cry, she was quick to say that there was no need to make a decision yet. we can keep waiting to see what happens. but i don't see the point in delaying. simba will most likely be born the last week of may, beginning of june. and i am scared. irrationally and illogically so. but i am. so, you know, say a prayer, do a rain dance, whatever your religious persuasion leads you to, for us. we would appreciate it.

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