Appointment updates!

Well, I am pretty behind on appointment updates....but honestly, I wouldn't have much to say! They've been BORING! And that's what you want when you've had the pregnancies I've had :)

It goes sort of like this:
34 week appointment - perfect blood pressure of about 120/60, no protein in the urine
36 week appointment - our HOME visit! The midwives came to our house, checked out our birth kit and the house layout, and I had another perfect BP reading.
37 week appointment - BP 118/62, slight protein in urine, but cause is most likely from recovering from the 24 hour stomach bug so we're not worried...also - I AM TERM!!!!!!!! Also, my big belly measures 39+ weeks!
38 week appointment - again with the perfect BP (118/62) and not even a slight trace of protein in the urine! Measuring a normal 38 weeks now, and we estimate baby is about 7lbs :)

38 weeks...can you even believe it. I have never been so pregnant! Maia was induced at 37w3d so I'm in uncharted territory now!

32 week appointment update

I am now 33 weeks, but figured I better update before 34 weeks hits and we have our next appointment! We are every 2 weeks now - the 34 week one takes place at the midwife's office, but the 36 week one takes place at our home! Exciting!

Anyways, 32 weeks appointment was somewhat boring - and that's a good thing! We went over labs and my liver panel was great, everything else looked good, only thing that had dropped down since my first trimester blood draw was Vitamin D, which I chalk up to the winter, so I added another 2,000 IU pill to my daily regimen (from 4,400IU a day to 6,400IU a day.) My blood pressure was taken and wasn't ideal at 139/74, but then my pulse was high, too - about 104 - so I thought my positioning must have been off and we decided to retake it. My blood pressure is pretty sensitive to how I'm sitting, it seems. If I have crossed legs, I need to have them uncrossed for awhile beforehand. In this case, I was sitting on the daybed and one of my legs seemed to be tucked and bent under the other beforehand, so I made sure to sit back and straighten my legs out for a long time beforehand. The next time we did my bp & pulse, it was perfect :) 128/60-something, I believe? Something like that, which is my baseline this whole pregnancy. Yay! We discussed some things about homebirthing, such as when to start gathering and ordering supplies, and I mentioned how crazy it felt to actually be talking about a homebirth! I think I so badly wanted to get to 29 weeks that I never thought about the time AFTER 29 weeks...which I now get to do!

16 week midwife visit

Well I finally have a computer back, time for a proper entry. My last entry was done on my iPhone - a bit tedious if you ask me! :)

I realized I never once talked about choosing my midwife. I talked about WHY I chose a homebirth midwife but not why I chose my specific midwife. Silly me! I will fill y'all in right now: So, sometime after I had Kieran I had started to do research on what had happened to me - the pre-e/HELLP, how it can possibly be prevented, etc. I remembered an old boss of mine had had HELLP syndrome with her first baby but not her second, so I decided to ask her what she had changed, if anything. She told me that while pregnant with her second, at 26 weeks, she started to get pre-e signs. She reached out to a local forum about what to do and a midwife replied - she gave her many thoughtful suggestions - change diet, lower stress, high protein, exercise, etc. This woman reports that the suggestions she received helped her turn around that pre-e diagnosis and she went on to deliver with no complications! She saved the whole conversation and copied/pasted it to me in a Facebook message. I never forgot the name of that midwife.

This summer, when Josh and I made the decision that at SOME point we would try for one more, I decided to call around to some local homebirth midwives. I had never done such preemptive planning, it felt great! I spoke with a few midwives about the changes I made, asked if they'd be comfortable taking me, asked about their experience, etc. I did speak to the midwife I referenced earlier and I loved her! So when it came time to interview midwives in my first trimester, she was the first one I scheduled. And, she ended up being the one I picked, without further interviewing? So - why did I pick her without seeing anyone else? Well, in addition to that success story from my former boss, in the interview, my midwife told me about a success story she had. I was hungrily looking for these success stories of people conquering pre-e - there had to be some, right!? Well, she shared with me that one of her clients had birthed 4 babies in a hospital and had had pre-e and gestational diabetes. When she had her 5th child, she sought out this midwife and birthed her baby at home with no pre-e or GD! And she had a 6th child at home as well - again, no complications! I was so awestruck. I knew she'd be able to help support me through this. I also personally knew a woman who had had pre-eclampsia & gestational diabetes with her first child (with a different midwife) and when she hired my midwife for her 2nd and 3rd births, she had no pre-eclampsia OR GD and credits much of her success to a diet and lifestyle changed supported by her midwife. So she came highly recommended from quite a few sources, and I felt comfortable with that from the get-go.

I still love her. She is fantastic. And the appointments, omg - THE BEST. Did you know homebirth midwives meet with you for an HOUR? A full hour! Not 30 minutes in a waiting room and 5 minutes with the doctor...an hour! That gives us lots of time to talk about everything - emotions, physical ailments, challenges or successes with my nutrition...it's so awesome. She and her apprentice really take the time to listen to Josh and I and we love it.

Today we had our 16 week appointment! For the first time, we tried to hear baby through the doppler but baby was WAY too active - just kept hearing my healthy placenta, ha! We'd hear the heartbeat for like, 2 seconds then baby would float away again. Ha! I felt my first two kicks last week! I haven't felt any since but boy oh boy do I feel this baby MOVE. So funny. Next month is our 20 week appointment, then I'll receive a referral to see a private practice perinatologist to do our 20 week ultrasound. He does the ultrasound himself and talks you through what you're seeing - unlike the ultrasounds techs who turn the screen away form you and can't tell you a damn thing, LOL. So we have that to look forward to! (And if I haven't mentioned it before, we are not finding out the sex!)