25 Weeks 1 Day

Wow - check out how much I've grown from four weeks ago!!

Prenatal today. Prenatal today without Midwife Kelly because she's moving on January 3rd. I had a feeling she wasn't going to be there for the birth and that's okay. I find what I'm most disappointed about, besides having a friend move away, is that we'll be missing the prenatal classes she was going to hold with us.

Dave and I haven't really talked about how we'll supplement the loss, but I feel we need to do something, and this something will probably happen on our own.

I've audited three childbirth classes and don't want to sit through another. And honestly, it would be even below Dave since he knows so much about childbirth already.

Didn't have much to catch up on with the ladies since four weeks ago. Things have been going great. My fatigue disappeared with the iron and my stress with the adrenal support.

I told them about my tooth staining because of pregnancy and we talked about how the world of dentistry is so far behind on the implications of mouth and pregnancy (except my dentist who totally gets it).

I mentioned my back tightening when I don't do yoga and that I've got an appointment with a new chiro next week - someone who can be called in for my birth if things get stuck.

We did have a great discussion about what I want during labor. This isn't a question that would normally be asked of most moms, but since I have the training they asked at what point do I think I want them to step in and help with pushing. We all agreed that it's so hard to know when to let a mom do her own thing and when to step up and become really involved with directions and such. As an apprentice I've struggled with wondering if I was abandoning mom by letting her be on her own or if those were my own abandonment issues I was projecting.

I want support. If I didn't want support I would have an unassisted birth. I mentioned how I already have a hard time telling what's going on down there and during pushing everything is going to be a mess, so having guided pushing with someone's fingers in my vagina will probably be really helpful for me.

I do want to give it a go on my own first, but I think it's going to take me a long time to figure out how to actually push, so why waste the precious energy for too long of a time. I am open to the help.

Since we were on the subject I mentioned that instead of sutures if I tear, I want to use Nori. Luckily Lori has experience with that, so that will be great. I saved the rest of my labor requests for another time.

Mama and baby vitals:

Weight: 139.2 (27 pound weight gain)

pH: 7.0

BP: 107/74

Pulse: 90

Position: Baby proved once again that baby doesn't like to be palpated. Both midwives had to have a feel before they decided that maybe baby was oblique (diagonal) and baby was probably head down and on the right.

FHT: Again, it took two midwives to find the heart rate with the fetascope. By this time baby was all excited and riled up, so the heart rate was 150's-160's.

Fundal Height: 27 (I think. I know it was more than my weeks.)