4:18 pm - week 35, 2006
More of what being pregnant means
This pregnancy has meant a lot of worry. My belly never got as big with this baby as it did with Boy. It turns out that one of the things they do at the monthly baby checkups is measure your belly, and at one point the midwife noticed that my belly had quit its slow expansion. More worry.
She sent me to the perinatal care center. This is where all the other worried moms go- the late-starters, the ones with diabetes, the ones on bedrest. To get to this place you're told to just go to labor triage and follow the signs. Labor triage is (very sensibly) located at the edge of the huge compound that is Hospital City. I'm expecting a short jaunt to the appt, but it turns out to be in the center of hospital city, and sending me past labor triage is a simple way to give directions that walks me past full-bellied moms-to-be, past rooms of crying babies newly born to happy families, past relatives waiting on their new arrivals. It is impossible not to be jealous.
Simon has dropped me off so I wouldn't be late. He and Boy show up soon after I complete my slow shuffle to the waiting room. It is full of girly magazines- all about children and babies and being pregnant. Contrast this to the ones you find at labor triage- Sports Illustrated and Time.
They call us in and set me down on the loveliest chair ever- you sit your awkward butt in it and then it lays down for you. Very nice. Even better is that it works in reverse, because getting up is becoming more and more awkward.
The tech measures asks if we know the sex- we tell her it's never been definitive. During the process she finds our girl's nethers and informs us it is definately a girl. Yay!
That's the last truly happy news we get. The tech measures the head circumference, the belly and the length of the femur. She measures the fluid. She measures the amount of blood flowing to the baby through the cord. When she's done we ask if she can tell us the results or if we have to wait on a dr. She tells us straight up our daughter weighs 4 lbs, 11 oz, which is in the 15th percentile. She goes to tell the Dr the same thing, and the Dr says to come back in 2 weeks and we'll see how the bean is doing. No one says to worry, and they're in no hurry to look at her again, so I figure we'll just keep on the way we were.
I do however, remain terribly jealous of these full figured moms. It hardly seems fair, because I have tried to take care of myself.
I pack up my desk at work. I really try to finish my ongoing projects and begin training people to do my job. I'm not saying I think it's going to happen any day now, but deep down I'm losing hope that this is going to be a smooth process.
I get teased a lot about how much waddle I've got for a 4 lb baby. The truth is that it's all the water I'm carrying that makes my feet and ankles swell. I hobble on ankleless elephant feet. My pelvis is coming apart, and it really hurts to walk. And I'm soooo tired.