Well we’re now into OB visits every other week. As of Friday
I was exactly 32 weeks pregnant (224 days, or 13,440 hours, or 806, 400
minutes, or 48,384,000 seconds). Yesterday I drove up to The Big Hospital,
stopping nearly halfway between home and there, to empty my already empty
stomach. Tempest has been giving me a hard time about overeating; eating oily
or greasy foods (apparently even just root vegetables with a little bit of
olive oil sprinkled on them to prevent them from burning when I roast them);
or, well… Just eating food in general. One bite too many and suddenly I’m
fighting to keep it down. Mind you, his sister did the same thing, but she was
far gentler about it. She preferred that I just empty that one extra bite,
please, she just needed a teensy bit more room. Not Tempest! Little stormling
feels that if I’ve impeded on his space at all, EVERYTHING MUST BE PURGED! Bless
‘im.
My favorite nurse weighed me at two pounds lighter than last
visit, which of course caused me to assume I was going to get scolded again. Au
contraire, mes amis! Dr. Goggles told me he was glad to see it. The new
standard, apparently, is for a preggosaurus to gain between 10-20 pounds during
pregnancy. My net gain thus far is only eleven! WOOT! I got a shot for the
nausea, which helped a bit; and a tetanus/pertussis (whooping cough) booster,
to make sure that some of the antibodies from the pertussis vaccination eeks
through the placenta and transfers to Tempest. The nurse gives great needle,
but inevitably I wind up with a killer headache and a sore arm for several days
afterward. Oh well; it’s for the little one. I can take it.
Dr. Goggles measured my fundal growth, and declared Tempest
to be about two weeks ahead of the curve, but not to worry – at this stage,
every baby grows differently. The ultrasound basically confirmed this. While “What
To Expect While You’re Expecting” suggests that babies at this stage of
development are usually around four-ish pounds, Tempest weighs a solid five. His
head and belly are up around the 90th percentile for size, which
puts him in the 70th overall. In other words; he’s a big baby. He’s
still in frank breech position, but nobody’s worried about that right now. He’s
still got two months to turn. Both Pooka (and reportedly Lord Bear as well)
turned about a week before their due dates; dramatically so, even. They were
also both large babies. Pooka weighed 8lbs, 10oz. Lord Bear was closing in on
10lbs, if I remember my mother’s recounting correctly.
The only concern I have about Tempest remaining breech is
that I REALLY, REALLY don’t want to have a cesarean section. One: I don’t like
surgery. Two: Epidurals don’t work on my right side, and while many have
reassured me that spinal blocks are totally different, I’m still wary. I do NOT
want to feel myself being cut open. And three: If I have a C-section, it will
throw off mine and Hubs’ timeline for trying for a little monkey of our own. So
if any of you lovely readers could send some thoughts along to encourage
Tempest to get into the proper, head-down, rear-facing position by 36 weeks, I’d
REALLY appreciate it.
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