Week 32!

Well we made it! Week 32 is the first of several very important milestones in our quest for a full-term Lloyd! Week 32 was where the perinatologist at Mary Birch wanted me before I was sent home from the hospital. (Fortunately, my doctor was not as conservative in that department!) Week 32 also marks a major point in health for a pre-term baby...healthy lungs and he's going on 4 pounds now!

Our follow up visit this Thursday was also a very good one. The OB said that while I was down to 70% effaced last week, I was basically not-effaced this week at all! I also have been gaining my requisite weight on schedule (up exactly one pound from last week and about 18 pounds over all). My tummy also measured 30 cm, up from 29 cm the week before. I had read that at this point, your tummy, a rough measurement of the baby's growth, should measure about the same number of cm as your pregnancy week. This puts me a little under 2 cm behind schedule. However, our OB also said that with low carrying babies, this measurement isn't as consistent and that as long as I'm gaining weight and my tummy is growing, she is happy. The last thing she did, more for my reassurance than anything else, was a very quick ultrasound to check the level of my amniotic fluid (more about this later) - which was really good. All this made her comfortable enough to let me skip next week's follow up appointment - yay!

This news came at a perfect time. The previous week had been very challenging for me. I had several bouts of paranoia about various issues, the biggest one was that I was leaking amniotic fluid. The books (which I have been reading lots of recently...which may or may not have been a good thing) provide enough information to confuse the heck out of you and just when you think you have something resolved, they usually end up saying...'but, it could also be Scary Thing X, so be sure to talk to your doctor ASAP.' All this and given that this entire scare came as such a surprise to everyone, left me second guessing every ligament pull, belly soreness, back ache, and stiffness. The thing is that regardless, I am still growing a baby in my tummy (during one of his biggest growth spurt periods) and this doesn't exactly happen without ligament pulls, belly soreness, back aches, and stiffness.

I also knew that we were coming up on the 32 week mark. And my paranoia started making me scared for the worst case scenario. I hated the idea that after going through all of this, I could still possibly give birth now and Lloyd would have to live in the NICU for weeks. Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful that the NICU is there and I know that if he needed to be there, it would be the best place for him and he would be cared for by the best people possible. But we obviously would want him home with us.

These things left me more vulnerable to some other common issues also encountered with extended bedrest. I'm a planner. And I found all my plans turned upside down. I had to cancel the other baby classes we had signed up for (Baby Care Basics and nursing), since they are unable to make accommodations for people on bedrest. I've also felt pretty lost when it comes to reading the pregnancy books and even the updates I get from Baby Center. While they are obviously still helpful for the purposes of marking Lloyd's progress, a lot of the things no longer apply to me. I've also felt a little lost related to our planning for the birth itself, since there are now a lot of things I can't do. All the exercises are out. (I'm not even allowed to do Kegel's!) A lot of the HypnoBirthing birth preparation practices are out. And this is frustrating since practice is really the key to the whole method. I can practice relaxing, but is that enough?

Anyway, it was all of this all rolled together that was hard last week. I do feel much better now though and I feel that while things are certainly not as we planned, everything will be fine. And as Brad says, regardless of what happens at this point, we are still going to have our baby in the end of it all. And that really is the most important thing of all...everything is just details.