Thursday, August 23, 2007

Well, OK then.

My OB appointment on Tuesday was, in a word, interesting. Informative, long, etc.


It started off with a bang-my manager was in town for the first time in almost a year, and we had sat down to go over the hand-off of my various projects. He was in the mood to chat, and since I actually SEE him so regularly (oh, and they are discussing compensation this week) I ended up sticking around longer than I should have. I look at my watch, panic, and proceed post haste to my appointment.


I took an alternate route, because my usual way is under (naturally) construction, and will be until fall of next year. Lovely. I've figured out an alleged back way, and off I go like a bat out of hell. Well, as much of a bat as my poor Jeep can muster. Oh the joy! More MnDOT crews! Hooray! Single lane with flagmen. Ugh. Needless to say, I ended up screaming into the parking lot a good 20 minutes late. Shit.


I'm late enough that they have put my file away. They go and retrieve it, and I do the shuffle of shame off to the waiting room chairs. I ended up waiting a while, since, well, now I was at their mercy. I finally get called back, and they do all of the lab stuff first before I get settled into the recliner from hell for my NST. I least I catch a break there-BabyA is wiggling quite happily after the buffalo chicken sandwich for lunch. Problem is that the wiggling is also entailing a great deal of rolling side to side, which makes it tough to keep a heartbeat trace. Much to my credit, I've done enough of these things to be able to chase it down without a great deal of nurse intervention. However, since I was late, I had screwed up the flow of things, so instead of being on the monitor for 20 minutes like I have in the past, it was almost 45. While it felt good to have my feet up, they were actually a little tingly by the time I was released from the pink Velcro straps.


The OB came in, not Dr. Wonderful, but another one of the practice docs that I have grown to like quite a bit. I was grumping about my aches and pains (hey, I'm entitled here) and she said that "you know that we're inducing you at 39 weeks, right?" Um, no. Insert deer in the headlights look. In the back of my mind, I recalled that I had read that in some cases of GD, early induction was recommended to try to head off any issues regarding size during delivery. However, I had assumed that since I had had GD with Son, and they let me go to term (I was scheduled for an induction on my due date-he came the day before) that the same protocol would be in line here. The main difference is that this time around, even though I have controlled it really well with no weight gain and very few sporadic BG spikes, is that I'm on insulin, and that shifts me into a different category. Great.

On the one hand, this could be a good thing. No panicking by the delivery staff due to a big head and shoulders, although it could still happen due to the decreasing accuracy of ultrasound at this point. I will end up with set date; plans can be made and finalized (a big bonus in my book-I tend to be a bit anal about this kind of stuff), animals dropped off at the kennel with the proper instructions in place, Son's care can be coordinated between my brother and the neighbors, Husband can get things in order to maybe really be able to take a week off.

The down side? Well, since I had been planning on working up until the 7th, and then taking a week off before, this throws a large wrench into the works. Huge. I suppose that I could stick to the plan; work until the 7th, birthday party for Son on the 8th, get induced on the 9th (39 weeks on the nose) and go home on the 11th. Just doesn't sound like a lot of fun, or very smart for me.

Soooo, I've moved up my last day to the 30th, and am cramming madly to try to get it all done. I suspect that I'll end up here over the weekend. I don't want to, but it may be a necessity if I want to have any time of the my time at home to really be a vacation, and not spent on email and reviewing responses. I probably should be doing that right now. BabyA has been making her presence known all afternoon, and I'm hideously sore, my back hurts, and I have a sneaking suspicion that dinner may be off for me, since I've been fighting to keep lunch down all afternoon.

I'll know a whole lot more after our appointment on Tuesday with Dr. Wonderful. Dr. OtherDoc said that they will do a cervical check then, and we'll talk about stripping membranes in the near future to try to get things rolling naturally. Guys, I'm not ready for this. I'm really not ready. However, they may get their wish. On top of BabyA doing her squirms all afternoon, I've been having a decent amount of low back pain and shooting pain down through my pubic bone. I'll also whisper this part: I think I may have even had a contraction or two. Shhhhhh.....

I'll continue to soldier on though, and try to gather it all up. I did manage to schedule a little me time this weekend between umpteen loads of laundry; a very-needed haircut and wax (I don't want that, but the brows are more than out of control and the lovely PCO 'stache has got to go). Just four more days of having to sit in this lousy office chair. Four...more...days....

2 comments:

Angie said...

Hang in there. I sure hope you wrap everything up at work early and are able to have a week off before she arrives. I had a week scheduled off before my due date and Keegan ended up making his appearance two weeks early and I never did get that week to myself. I had a two week old baby on my due date which I guess is better than being overdue BUT it would have been nice to have a bit of down time.

At any rate, I wish you all the best and I can't wait to hear all about this little girl! Take care and take as much time for yourself as you can manage (with a toddler) in the next week or so.

Erin said...

Hmmm...ummm, surprise? I can see how that would throw things off completely. I'd planned on doing experiments (I was in grad school) up until 38 weeks, then doing minor experiments and research until 40.5 weeks, then being done if he still wasn't here. You can imagine my surprise when my water broke at 37w4d, when I had a major experiment planned for the next day. Babies tend to surprise you even if you're being induced, apparently!

I hope that you're able to get everything done and have some time to relax before your daughter comes!