Life in Limbo

I'm not sure how to think or feel about this stage of pregnancy.

On the one hand, I still have 6.5 more weeks before my due date, which, realistically, means I could be pregnant for over two more months.

On the other hand, in a week and a half, by baby will have reached the point in pregnancy at which my mom's water broke with her firstborn.

Last week, I was having a little meeting with some folks from work about my maternity leave plan. They haven't hired a substitute yet, which has been making me a little anxious. One of my bosses asked, "So, what's the earliest-case scenario that you'd need to go on maternity leave?" It kind of floored me because, technically speaking, I could need to go on maternity leave at any point.

Is that likely? No. But according to a little Googling I just did, 12% of babies in the US are born before 37 weeks, and three-quarters of those are the result of spontaneous labor (as opposed to inductions for pre-eclampsia, etc). I'm guessing that even among the spontaneous labors, though, a good chunk of them are probably taken up with women who have had risk factors that I don't have. So while I can't be sure of the exact odds, they probably aren't all that high.

Which is a good thing. Right now, as I've been getting more and more uncomfortable (have I mentioned my excruciating tailbone/hip pain that I get every time I stand up from a seated position?), I've been daydreaming about the possibility that the baby would come a little early and spare me some of the late-pregnancy discomforts. But I immediately feel bad for wishing that, since, according to the March of Dimes, I should be hoping for the baby to stay in until at least 39 weeks gestation.

So, in a nutshell, here are all the timing issues that I have rolling around in my brain:

1. Right now, my baby would have very good odds of survival. Although I want him/her to stay in for awhile, the scariness of pre-term labor is not as intense as it was even just a couple weeks ago.

2. In 1.5 more weeks, I will be at 35 weeks, which is also when I will consider myself to be 8 months pregnant (I know some people say that you're 9 months pregnant when you're 36 weeks, but 35 weeks is Feb. 9 and my last menstrual period was June 9, so that's how I'm measuring time). This is the week in which my mom had my sister and at which the designation moves from "moderately pre-term" to "late pre-term." It's also the week at which I can begin to obsessively check this site to see my day-by-day odds of labor.

2. In 3.5 more weeks, I will be "full-term." If the baby was born at that time, I'd no longer be disqualified for a waterbirth (at least not for that reason). I'd also have reached the point where they should have my GBS test results back, so I wouldn't have to worry about being given antibiotics unnecessarily as a result of an "unknown" status.

In 3.5 weeks, I'll be full-term. Wait a minute, is that right? Yes. Yes it is. Wow.

3. Around 3.5-5 weeks from now, I'll reach the stage of pregnancy when my mom had me. (My parents don't remember my exact due date, but they describe it as having been "late May" or "maybe early June" so since I was born on May 10, I'm guessing I was born between 37-38.5 weeks.)

4. In 6.5 weeks, I will reach my due date. This also will mark the date at which I will go on maternity leave. I'm really glad that I decided to start my maternity leave at my due date. That way, there's a silver lining if I haven't gone into labor by that point -- at least I'll get a few days or maybe even a couple weeks at home to rest up before the baby arrives!

5. In 7.5 weeks is when we have to "make a plan" with the midwives regarding the schedule for a possible induction. Our midwife group is very anti-induction, so as far as I know, they could still recommend that the baby stay in there for a week or two more, unless there are problems.

When I write out the milestones like that, even the long-range estimations of the baby's arrival don't seem all that far away. But that still leaves me with wondering how I should be thinking about this stage of pregnancy. I'm certainly not "ready to pop" but I'm also only looking at a few (busy) weeks after I'm back at work from winter break before I should be expecting a baby. At what point should I install the carseat in the car? At what point should we pack our bags? At what point should we wash the baby laundry and buy any items that we are supposed to have "on hand" when the baby comes home from the hospital? Doing these things doesn't stress me out, but not knowing when it's appropriate to do them makes me a touch nervous. I don't want to do this stuff too early and then find myself in a psychological frenzy over the built-up anticipation. I don't want to be staring at a packed hospital bag for 2 months, but I also don't want to wait until the grading piles up and my hip pain is awful, etc and then have those last few weeks be a huge pain.

Any suggestions? I'd love to hear them!

This week in (maybe not so) brief

So this has been a highly eventful week. I am going to try to cram a whole lot into this post, so I'll bold some of the key statements.

One week ago today, I passed out in my classroom. In front of my pre-algebra students.

I had been feeling poorly all morning and had thought that I just needed to eat some lunch. After lunch, though, I still felt awful -- perhaps even worse. I remarked to several of my colleagues about how I was still feeling shakey and dizzy. I even went to the special ed teacher who works across the hall from me and asked her if she was going to be around in her room (she often watches the class if I am feeling poorly and have to run off to the restroom, etc) because I had a feeling that I might need some assistance. The afternoon just kept getting worse until my pre-algebra students were working with their partners and I went to stand up out of my chair to go over to one of them. I immediately crumpled to my knees and then fell all the way down to the ground.

I barely lost consciousness. I was out for maybe a few seconds -- maybe even less -- before I could hear my students saying, "Ms. Arden?" and "Why is Ms. Arden on the floor?" I got the attention of one of them and told her to go get the aforementioned teacher from across the hall.

I don't have great memories of all the events that happened next. They're still a bit hazy. The most detail that anyone would want to know, though, is this:

• My colleagues were great and they took care of my students and contacted my midwife group and my husband. 
• Ben came and drove me to the hospital. 
• Everything checked out as normal. Nothing wrong with my urine or blood samples, flu test came back negative, etc. 
• Despite the previous bullet point, we didn't overreact. Everyone confirmed that coming in to the hospital was the right thing to do. It's always nice when the folks who are treating you don't make you feel like you're wasting their time or acting like a hypochondriac. 
• Basically, the most likely hypothesis is that the baby was just taking up too much of my abdominal space and not allowing me to take deep enough breaths. This seems likely, since I felt so much worse after eating (since filling my stomach further restricted the space that I had for breathing). It's likely that it was compounded by the fact that my hemoglobin has been on the low side -- I'm taking the iron supplements, but it's still not back up to the normal range yet. So restricted breathing + low hemoglobin = poor oxygen circulation. 

So that was my Monday. On Tuesday I stayed home and rested because I was still a bit shaken up. In the afternoon, we went out and bought some new bras that had a slightly larger band size for increased lung capacity, which I think has been helping. 

Also on Tuesday, we went to an evening "Expectant Parents" class at a pediatrician group's office. It was really interesting to learn more about what to expect from a pediatrician and how the whole process works. It's kind of strange to remember that, at the end of all this pregnancy stuff, we're going to be parents. We're going to have a baby. A baby who will need to come in for well-baby visits, and who might have trouble breastfeeding, and who might get sick or develop allergies . . . It's so easy to focus on the pregnancy and forget that at the end of all of this, we're going to start the process of actually being parents. 

Back at the first ultrasound, I'd suddenly had the realization that the little squirmy figure on the screen was our baby and that we were it's parents. Sometimes, I still think of us as parents -- to an "inside baby." At other times, though, like right now, I am very aware of the fact that our status as "parents" is still a very different status from what it will be like once this baby is actually born. There is going to be a big (and terrifying) shift when we actually have an "outside baby" and the process of taking care of it is much more involved than not eating/drinking certain things and going to the midwife regularly. When we actually have to worry about whether we're using the diaper/carseat/swing/swaddle correctly and safely. 

And, most terrifyingly of all, when our child starts to actually give us feedback about what we're doing right/wrong. I was telling Ben the other day that right now I can blissfully live in the illusion that my bambin@ loves me and thinks it's awesome when I sing to him/her in the shower. At some point, though, I'm going to sing to my baby and the baby might give a more cutting critique than I was hoping for. It's easy to interpret a kick as "Wow, mama, you're a great singer! Thanks for making me so happy. I love you!," but when they have a more full range of communication skills -- like disturbed faces, and ear-piercing shrieks -- I might realized that I do not have the power to enthrall my baby in the way that I'd thought. 

Anyway, that was Tuesday. 

Also this week, we received our first gifts from our registry. It was pretty exciting to get a package in the mail that had something in it that we'd picked out. It kinda felt like magic. I had mentioned before that I've been wanting to do a post about the process of registering, and since today's blog is bound to end up very long no matter what, I figure I'll do that here. 

Picking out items for a baby is a very odd process. First of all, we are rarely ever asked to pick out so many gifts for a person we've never met. By the time this baby is born, we will likely have an entire room full of items that we have bought or have been bought for us for our baby -- and none of them will have involved  input from the baby itself. And even for those items that we could wait to purchase until we'd been able to consult the baby -- there will likely be few opportunities for the baby to "test drive" products and give us feedback ahead of time. 

Instead, we are left to wonder and hypothesize. Will my baby like having a swing? Will s/he find this crib mattress comfortable enough? Will the baby notice that I bought the generic diapers instead of the brand-name ones? Will my baby be entertained by this toy/mobile/tummy-time gym? Will my baby refuse this brand of bottle? These are all questions that I cannot answer. Reading reviews for various products helps a little, but in some cases it only confuses the matter further. The internet is full of people with very strong opinions. No sooner are you done reading many glowing reviews about how this product stimulates the baby's development and how much they love it, then you read a review from someone else who says that their baby just ignored the product entirely. I just wish I could say, "Hey Bambin@, can you give me three or four little kicks if you think you'd like this product? If not, just jump on my bladder in protest." 

So registering for our bambin@ was at least five times as difficult as it had been to register for our wedding. Somehow we made it through, though, and when we received that first gift it felt very rewarding and worth the frustration of all the review-reading and price-comparing (we'd registered at Amazon and Target, so for items where there was overlap between the two stores, we tried to register for the item at the place that had the best price). It feels good to add some more things to the nursery and feel like we're getting more prepared. 

On Friday, I "saw stars" for the first time in my life. I was feeling a little off in the evening -- extra tired and my lower back was killing me. I drank some water and it went down the wrong way, causing me to start having a coughing spell. At some point, the coughing led to vomiting (as it often does). But before it did, I started seeing these little yellow spots flying all around me. They were sort of floating and sort of falling at the same time. It reminded me of the bioluminescence exhibit that Michelle and I went to in New York last spring. They lasted for what felt like a long time. I kept thinking that it was just a temporary thing (like a brief afterimage when you look away from a light) and that when I blinked or moved my eyes, they would stop, but they didn't.

Anyway, it was weirdly beautiful and disturbing at the same time. Eventually they faded, and then I went back to the task of coughing and vomiting. I went to the midwife today and she said that it sounded very strange, but that if it were pre-eclampsia (which is also associated with visual disturbances), it wouldn't be an isolated incidence like that. And since my blood pressure is so low, they really aren't worried about it. I'm to call in if it happens again, though. 

To wrap up the week, I think we've finally chosen our hospital. We went on a tour of St. John's this past weekend and I felt very positively about it. It is still a longer drive away than St. Joe's, but the distance from the place where you enter the building to the maternity area is much smaller, so ironically I almost feel like it would feel like less of a journey for the pregnant person (although it might feel longer for the partner). One thing that I've always struggled with at St. Joe's (even though I've had great care experiences there so far) is that no matter where I'm entering, it always involves either a long walk or a long wheelchair ride in order to get to Labor and Delivery. I was surprised and delighted when I saw that when you bring an expectant mom in to St. John's, you walk through one lobby, one hallway, one secured doorway, and then you're at the admitting table for L&D -- rather than going through a labyrinth of hallways and elevators to get from the drop-off location to L&D. 

St. John's is a considerably longer drive, though, so there's still a chance that -- depending on traffic and weather -- we may go to St. Joe's. I'd be fine with that, of course. They're a great hospital and the wheelchair ride isn't the only thing to consider! 

We're also still going to tour at Woodwinds, but unless they offer something that is significantly better than St. John's, I don't think we'll end up with them. They are about as far away as St. John's and there are fewer ways to get there if there are traffic jams. 

So that was our week! My apologies for the length. Things have been busy around here and I haven't had a chance to write smaller posts. 

The Name Game

It feels a little strange to be "done" with the naming process already. While our Bambin@ doesn't have a name yet, we think we're about as done as we intend to be before meeting the baby in person.We have two full (first and middle) girls' names and "one" boys' name (really two possibilities, but they're just the first and middle flip-flopped, so whatever name we choose will rule out the other name for a future son).

I was always one of those people who had a mental list of future baby names. Even during the years when I felt strongly that I didn't want to have children, the planner in me still felt the need to have a list of names I would use for them if I changed my mind. 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the process of naming an actual baby is hard. 

First of all, it's a lot harder to decide on a name for a baby when there's someone else in the picture who gets equal say. I'm not saying that I wish that Ben had been more disinterested in our baby's name, but rather that I just hadn't realized that it would be possible that he could dislike so many of the top names from my middle school lists -- or that once I was told that one of them had been vetoed, I would suddenly feel like it was the only right name for our baby. I had always thought that the biggest problem would be to choose one name out of so many great contenders. I never thought that we might find ourselves in a situation where we'd be looking for a needle in a haystack.

The second difficulty was that, when it came to naming an actual baby -- one who is growing inside me and tickling me as I write this -- I found that even my own list shrunk considerably. Suddenly, names that seemed cool in a baby name book seemed silly or weird when applied to a child that would be part of our family. Naming a baby is such a huge responsibility. I read once that "naming a baby is like choosing a tattoo for a sleeping person." That kind of stuck with me. Just because I thought a name was cool didn't mean that I was prepared to give it to my kid -- whose future "coolness" is currently of an unknown nature. I'd suggest a name to Ben and even as I read it out loud, I'd know that it felt wrong. Versatility became a priority.  

The third difficulty has been that I am an awkward person who thinks an awful lot about what others think of me. In today's climate of "anything goes" with baby names, each individual name announcement reflects more and more information about the parents. Something tells me that families didn't really describe themselves as having a naming "style" until relatively recently. Oh sure, there were certainly names associated with ethnic groups, and I'm sure that there were certain names that would get passed around within a family -- either as honor names, or just from familiarity. But I'm guessing that categories like, "Geeky Chic" were probably not really a thing until the past 20 years or so -- or maybe even more recently. I find myself pondering questions like, "Is this name a little too hipster?" or "Would this baby name make my family look like wannabe ranchers?" Set aside the worries about whether the name will be versatile enough to fit Bambin@ of the Future -- even before we get to the point where our child might resent his/her own name, we have to contend with the fact that the choice sends a message about us too.

Having all those options and choices -- and having those choices attached to specific styles....and having those styles determine whether your choice for the next baby's name will "fit" with the first baby's -- is pretty overwhelming. Laura Wattenberg wrote in The Baby Name Wizard: 

Nothing makes a choice harder than choices -- lots of choices. You go to the store to buy a flashlight; they have one flashlight: you buy it, you're happy. If they have twenty flashlights, though, you agonize, and probably go home worried that you didn't make the best possible selection. Now suppose there are 10,000 flashlights, and you'll have to keep the one you choose for the rest of your life. Is it any wonder that picking a baby name can be stressful?

It's the same concept as shopping at Aldi versus other grocery stores. Sometimes it's nice to just have some limitations to the options. It's also one of the (many) reasons that we bought our crib and changing table at Ikea rather than pacing the floor of Babies R Us. (More on our experiences with shopping and creating our registries in a later post . . .)

I'm not saying that I hate having options. If we had only as many names to choose from as there are cribs at Ikea, there would be a lot of repeats in every classroom. I like the fact that the current trend is for parents to choose more unusual names for their kids -- mostly because it makes my own name seem less weird.

The point of this post, though, was not to go off on a philosophical journey discussing the paradox of choice and the meaning of a name in today's society, but rather to celebrate the fact that I think we've finally settled into as much of a "decision" as we intend to make before the baby is born.

And that's all for now. 

Getting Schooled

We had our first expectant parents' class last weekend. We've decided to take classes through our doula, so our classes are not only private, but they are also tailored to us and our particular birthing experience. This approach has its positives and negatives, of course. On the one hand, we get to know our doula through extended face-to-face conversations and we get to ask all the questions -- no matter how specific -- we would like without having to worry about wasting the time of the other students. For example, I could follow up every section with a question about whether there were any specific considerations if I were to do a waterbirth, without having to worry about being "that waterbirth lady" in the classroom.

On the other hand, because I am constantly interjecting my own questions, I worry that I'm messing with the flow of her lessons and getting us off-track on tangents too often. I wonder whether I should just write down my questions as I think of them, and then wait until she asks for questions to list them off.

But maybe I'm just thinking too much from the perspective of my own teaching experience. After all, we are the only students in the class.

What's really nice and reassuring about the prenatal classes so far is that the information that I've received about healthy birth practices is echoing what I've learned from the midwives. So I feel less anxious about having to "wait for the baby to decide when it's going to be born," for example, because I am getting more and more information about why that is a best practice.