Even though our daughter is here, I thought I’d take a quick look back on the final weeks of my pregnancy. I had planned to do another “bumpdate” once I was on maternity leave and had a bit more free time, but of course we know how that turned out!
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| Childhood friends. |
At the time of my last pregnancy update, I was on my way to Southern California for a babymoon with my hubby in Pismo Beach, followed by my baby shower! I was 30 weeks pregnant and feeling good — “pretty normal” is what I kept telling people who asked how I was feeling. And in the five or so weeks that followed, not much changed. Pregnancy really treated me well. I was starting to slow down a bit at work; squatting became more of a challenge and my feet, or I should say the bump, didn’t want me to move quite as quickly sometimes. But because I hadn’t gained all that much weight — topping out at about 17 or 18 pounds at week 36 — I was still sleeping fine (no crazy pillow needed) and I didn’t have any aches or pains (besides my sore feet from working retail in heels!).
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| Babymooning in Pismo Beach at 30 weeks pregnant. |
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| With my bestie at my baby shower, 31 weeks pregnant. |
The only troubling or out-of-the-ordinary thing I experienced happened on Sept. 22, when we rang in 32 weeks with a bit of a scare that led to me leaving work and going to Labor & Delivery for evaluation. I had just finished my first bridal appointment of the day and while saying my goodbyes to the bride and her mom I felt a little something “leak” out. I honestly didn’t think much of it. I thought it might have been a bit of pee actually and figured I just needed to go to the bathroom. (Babies like to press on bladders!) I was so unworried that I spent another five minutes or so cleaning up my gowns and chatting with my coworkers before I finally headed to the ladies room. When I wiped I saw a scary surprise — bright red blood.
Naturally I freaked out, though I tried to maintain some composure since I was at work. Standing in a corner of my store, right outside the restroom, trying to be inconspicuous as shoppers walked around me, I called my OB’s office and spoke in hushed tones. I was put on hold while the nurse conferred with a midwife and I remaining relatively calm until the nurse got back on the line and told me that I should go to L&D to get checked out. That’s when the crying started. I hadn’t even been to the hospital yet! I didn’t know where L&D was! Am I really going to Labor & Delivery today? What is happening, what does the blood mean? Is baby OK, is she going to stay put? All these thoughts were running through my head.
To make matters worse, my husband had decided to drive to about an hour south to San Jose that morning to go pick up a car seat. I texted Greg while I was on the phone with the OB to let him know that if he was on his way to San Jose to turn around. He hadn’t gotten to San Jose yet but he was farther away from me and baby than he would have liked to have been at that moment and he was freaking out too, especially as he battled Silicon Valley traffic to get to the hospital in Walnut Creek.
So I drove myself to the hospital, which luckily is only about 10 minutes away from my work, and when I checked in at L&D I was a teary, anxious mess. Fortunately, my doctor was actually there (to perform a c-section as it turns out… foreshadowing?) and when he came up to me at the check-in desk I immediately grabbed him and hugged him. I think it was comforting to see a familiar face. I was then taken into a room and hooked up to monitors to track baby’s heart rate and any uterine contractions. As it turned out, I was having some mild contractions, many of which I couldn’t feel and those that I could felt just like pressure. But baby girl’s heartbeat tracings were perfect. It wasn’t long before Greg ran into the room, panicked as he scrambled to my side, and the nurse told him not to worry, to take a breath, that baby and I were fine.
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| Forcing a smile during my unexpected trip to Labor & Delivery at 32 weeks pregnant. |
I spent about three hours that afternoon being monitored, and I was given medication to calm my uterus. In the end, there wasn’t a definitive reason for the bleeding but the doctor’s best guess was that the intestinal troubles (read: very frequent and soft bowel movements) I had been dealing with for about a week may have irritated my uterus, causing it to contract and, perhaps because of my low-lying placenta, expel blood. All in all, it seemed like a minor and isolated incident. But out of an abundance of caution, I was put on modified bedrest for the following week.
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| One of the last ultrasound captures of our baby girl. |
Speaking of low-lying placentas, that brings us to the only other issue I faced in pregnancy. At my 20-week (almost 21-week) anatomy scan on July 6, Greg and I learned that my placenta was located too close to my cervix and that it needed to move at least 2 centimeters away in order for me to give birth vaginally. When we checked again two months later, on Sept. 7, the placenta hadn’t shifted much. Then, on Oct. 5, an ultrasound revealed good news — and bad news. The good news was my placenta had moved the requisite 2 centimeters! There was no longer a placental reason for a c-section. However, baby girl — who had been perfectly positioned four weeks before — was now Frank breech. Her head up by my ribs, her little bottom down by my pelvis, her legs kicked up in front of her face, by her hands. My hope at that point was that she would turn on her own, especially since I was back at work and moving around again after nine days of bedrest.
No such luck though. At my OB checkup on Oct. 20, baby was still breech. Since I was 36 weeks pregnant, the chances that she would flip on her own were slim to none. Baby girl was starting to outgrow her cramped quarters and my amniotic fluid would only decrease in the weeks ahead, giving her even less wiggle room. I had already read up on external cephalic version — a procedure in which the baby’s position in the womb is manipulated manually, from the outside — and my midwife recommended that we schedule one for the following Monday if I still wanted a shot at a vaginal delivery.
In the meantime, a few photos from my last weeks of pregnancy…
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| 33 weeks pregnant. |
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| 34 weeks and 5 days pregnant. |
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| The last bump photo I snapped, at 35 weeks and 3 days pregnant. |
