Friday, January 11, 2008

Midwife appt #2: 17 weeks 6 days

I am a little bit late with this update. My appointment was last Wednesday. It was pretty uneventful. My midwife arrived at 6pm. We started with getting caught up a bit on each others lives. Then I said, "Let's find a heartbeat and see if this baby is still alive."

She sent me to pee on a stick first - everything looked good except for specific gravity (as usual) and I was leaking ketones. That freaked me out a bit, but my midwife said it could be from not getting enough protein or being dehydrated and not to worry. Of course, later that night I checked the internet and it does seem to be no big deal. Some practitioners don't even check for ketones anymore.

Then I laid down on the couch and bared my belly. She felt around for where the baby was and brought out the doppler. She moved it around and I could often hear my heartbeat. She kept looking and looking. It felt like minutes. Brad was holding my hand and I was holding my breath. She asked if my placenta was in front and I confirmed that it was. She felt around some more for the baby. She said, "Oh, he has moved down here. She placed the doppler and we heard that fast rhythm that had to be the baby. I was so relieved, tears streamed out of my eyes. We just sat there and listened for another 15 seconds or so. Such sweet music!

After that she measured the size of my uterus which is measuring right on time. Then she took my blood pressure and as she wrote it down next to my last appointment's bp she said, "Ahh, so now we know to check for heart tones then take your blood pressure."

We talked about how I haven't been sleeping very well. I have restless legs which are completely manageable when I am not pregnant, but get much worse when I am. Every night I have trouble falling asleep. About 4 hours later I wake up from a vivid dream only to have trouble falling asleep again. We talked about using the herbal remedy skullcap - which works wonders for my restless legs, but it works because it is a mild sedative and I worry about using it too often. She thought that a 1/2 glass of red wine before bed might be better. As she pointed out, many cultures drink small amounts of wine throughout pregnancy and I would have a muscle relaxant as well as some good antioxidants. I think 1/4 of a glass would probably do me quite nicely, so I might just try it.

We also talked about a recurrent theme to my nightly vivid dreams. About 80% of the time they are about the time I was in high school or college and 80% of those involve my family members who are all appropriately younger. My midwife thinks I may be processing "family of origin" issues. My therapist said that as I am moving to create my own family, it is only natural that I would be thinking about my childhood and the things I want to duplicate and avoid.

As I read through this post before publishing it, two things struck me. 1) that I have reached a point where I can be so upset because it takes a few extra seconds to find a heartbeat and 2) that there is someone in my life I so casually call "my therapist." Thank you, infertility.

11 comments:

AwkwardMoments said...

thank you for hte update. I am glad that all is going well for you. I do hope you get some sleep. That does make a huge difference.Out of curiosity. How do you know if the placenta is in front? I just had my first doppler experience and boy does it seem like forever to find what they are looking for

Anonymous said...

My OB/GYN told me that I could have one drink every other day (didn't specify any particular kind of drink) after the 13th week -- if I wanted. And, imbibe I did, with no ill effects.

stacyb said...

glad the baby is healthy and growing!
very exciting.hopefully as the pregnancy progresses you will be able to feel a little more secure and get some sleep.

my friends who live in europe are actually told it's healthy and good for them to drink a tiny bit of wine or beer.

Working Girl said...

Ahhh...and they say pregnancy is bliss!!! Whoever they are they need to shut up or get with the times. Glad to hear you have made it this far. My thoughts are with you!!!

Anonymous said...

Hey Cutey! :)

Glad to hear everything is going so well (so far). Don't you get to go in and find out whether there is a little boy or girl in there soon? So excited to hear what it is!

XOXO,

Amber Halpin

m said...

Hey Kami, I'm so sorry if you've already talked about this and I can't find it - but how did you find your doula? How did you decide which one to use?

Feel free to email me at the usual place or just drop a comment my way.

Should we be successful with this attempt, this is definitely the route we'd like to take, but I am clueless as to where to start (and obviously I won't start any research for a while longer.)

Familyofthree said...

Why are you no longer on my favorites list I wonder...this is why I am always late! Ugh.

Anyway, You have a scrappy baby there. Trying to hide from the midwife :) Glad he/she is doing well! Glad mommy is doing well too!

Geohde said...

I'm glad to hear that all is going well with bub. You're just about half way!

J

Pamela T. said...

Glad to hear all is progressing nicely with your pregnancy.

And I had to laugh at your last paragraph. There are quite a few, how shall we say, distinctly different aspects of me now that I can all attribute to infertility. It has shaped me in ways I would have never imagined.

Anonymous said...

I had very, very vivid dreams when I was pregnant... violent, sexual freaky stuff... it was kind of funny, every morning I'd scare my husband with yet another one... I'll be very curious to see if those return should things get cooking... very glad to hear of your good news...! I hope things continue you along swimmingly!

Me said...

I am sometimes stuck by the normalcy of not-normal things in my life that are a direct result of a.)husband's illness or b.) IF.