OB appointment 25 weeks 5 days

From a single-celled egg (and sperm) to an eggplant.
Who would ever have thought?

Sorry for the silence - I have been very busy. The summary of this post is: All is continuing to go well.

I saw my OB yesterday and the first thing she said was, "Did you know you just made it through the two most important weeks of this pregnancy?!" and then, "Mo, I think you are going to be a mother!"

Huh! Maybe, just maybe, I am! So weird.

Tomorrow is 26 weeks! According to my research, this little girl's chances of survival if she were born now has increased to 80%. Still don't want her here anytime soon, but things are looking brighter. Someone asked in a comment if I had any reason to think I was at risk for preterm birth. The answer is no, I have no rational reason. It is just that when you have lost 6 pregnancies in a row that you tend to lose faith that things will go the way there are supposed to. There is definitely a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop sometimes. So getting this little baby far enough along that she has a good chance of making it...well, it is very reassuring indeed.

In terms of the appointment, my belly is measuring 27 weeks - so one week ahead. According to one of the websites I read, Ms. Magpie is the size of an eggplant now. Holy Mackerel! My blood pressure is still looking good (117/79, I think?) and I actually lost a pound in the past two weeks (up 17 pounds total), but they weren't concerned. She didn't check my cervix this time - says it doesn't need to be checked. I was surprisingly OK with this. She asked me if I am feeling the baby move every day (yes). I asked her if the fluttering/shuddering movements I sometimes feel are normal, or if they could be seizures. She said I wasn't the first person to ask this, and that those movements were normal.

I had freaked myself out a bit looking at some literature from our hospital that listed episiotomy as being used  in 48.8 percent of vaginal births at this facility (yikes!). I talked to my OB yesterday and she said for her group of 3 OBs, the rate is more like 5%, which sounds much more reasonable to me.

She gave me a referral for a fetal echocardiogram with the pediatrics department, just to triple check there is no damage from my high vitamin E intake earlier in the pregnancy. My husband Will isn't that into getting it done (what if we find something?, he said), but I'd rather know if there's anything there so we can be prepared - even for small things - that may be an issue. I'm not expecting an issue, so mostly I think it will be reassuring, but if there were anything, I would want to know. Will, apparently, prefers blissful ignorance (opposites attract?)

The OB also recommended two doulas who work frequently with her practice. I am interviewing one of them tomorrow. It turns out she was also my sister in law's doula for her three births. So she's pretty highly recommended! Assuming we (me and her and her covering doula) click tomorrow, we will hire her.

So that's the pregnancy update for now. I will not leave you waiting again so long for the next post, I promise!

Mo

Click here to subscribe