Pain in the Progress

Weekly trips to the OB office are now a part of our lives. Wednesday is the magical trip day and while I have been trying not to notice that these visits are usually a half hour behind the regularly scheduled programming, Jud has been a bit unable to let it go. It’s nice when he’s time sensitive like that. Reminds me of me.

Yesterday, however, we were not our typical fifteen minutes early due, in large part, to this one woman who’s up the food chain a bit from me in the office who showed up at my desk right when I was swiveling in my chair to leave. My wonderful, extra beautiful neighbor agreed to work on the project (which was apparently needing to be done NOW and not tomorrow despite the fact that we have been working on said project since August. I love how she thought the papers in her hand were on fire and we should put them out but can completely and utterly ignore every email I’ve sent her over the past month. Not bitter. Just tired of email constipation perpetuated by upper level management. Am letting it go now). I dropped off some paperwork with the finance people on my way out the door and then fought traffic to get home to pick up the hubs.

The hospital where the BehBeh is going to be born is downtown and as in every city, downtown parking is tricky. Park on this street for lots of quarters. Drive into this lot and pay some dollars. Park a block or two off of where you need to be and pay almost nothing. There are lots of choices and most of them involve lots of walking, something I now restrict unless the end result involves a refrigerator or a toilet. Jud dropped me off and I walked to the elevator, waited for the little ding and then watched as heavy person after heavy person piled into this same little mirrored box on a string. I started to panic ever so slightly as the doors shut and was relieved when they opened on the third floor (I only had three more to go and then I would be free of the stink and the breath and the possible free fall when the cord snapped).

The doors shut and we waited….nothing. I hit the button for six again, hoping that my sheer will would push us up the shaft, but the doors opened instead to the third floor hallway and I dashed off. I found the stairwell and hoofed the belly up three flights of stairs.

By the time I got to the office door, I was sweaty and a little out of breath, but still three minutes early. I lied on the time sheet and said I got there two minutes before then, because I didn’t want to admit in writing how close I’d come to showing up at my appointment time….it would seem too much like I have adjusted to the dfw way of life….late, lazy and owing somebody something. I sat down and tried to calm my heart. Jud came in about a minute later and one minute after that the sonogram-lady appeared and took us back. I peed in the cup. She weighed me. We all went into the dark sono-room.

Crawling up onto the table and leaning all the weight of my giant belly against the major veins and arteries in my back that carry the blood where it should go made me almost immediately sick to my stomach and dizzy. I did my best to shift around and tried not to look too overwhelmed by the lack of properly moving oxygen.

And then there he was. Looking full grown and wrapped up. His head, no longer buried in my hip or the placenta, but resting instead on my pelvic bones. The placenta, comfortably out of his way. He was sucking in the fluid pretty quickly, his lips formed into a little round heart of pursing and relaxing, with one hand tucked right underneath his chin. Giant belly with a strong heartbeat and all the measurements coming out just right. He looked comfortable, but snug, squishy in his watery home but firm from the outside. It made me really anxious to meet him.

The transducer could not fully trace his form because my belly is so round that there was no way for it all to touch me and pick up a full picture. A few weeks and they change so much. Changes especially in how much he weighs and all that weight was really starting to make me light headed and that’s when Jud asked if I was okay and the sono-lady probably could tell that I was not so okay and should get off my darn back. So the lights came back on and we trotted out to see the nurse.
Blood Pressure: 100/70
Weight: 152 (holy cow)
Step B test: negative
Kim: happy, but still dizzy

We waited for the OB and he came in to see how things were (and I am not making this word up in the baby terminology world because they really use it, even if it makes the lady business sound like bananas on the counter) ripening.
I’d say we’re in that time when the banana is still a tiny bit green, but would still be good to go.

Dilated: 1 cm
Effaced: 80%

The OB said that I am an overachiever. Who could argue with that?

Then he said that he was touching the baby’s head (obviously my water has not broken, so it’s not like he was touching the baby’s actual skin, but nonetheless, his head and all his violent actions say he is coming soon) and that all of that effacing business I’ve been doing (violent hot stabbing pains now explained) should make for a much easier labor. Said labor will probably come earlier than originally scheduled. We’ll keep you posted.

(btw – we have our last set of house guests tonight and then no one is welcome to spend the night until much later, except my mom, who is not shocked by the non-bathroom-door-closing, indecent lounge wear and half nakedness that are clearly called for at this stage. on second thought, Allison, you are welcome too as somehow nine-month pregnant Kim wears about the same amount of clothing as July-heat-dime-saving-post-work-Kim with whom you were forced to share living space for a year. Neighbors – you’ll have to wait for a while after knocking on the door. Everyone else – make sure you call)