Locked and loaded...

...and ready to go! The baby is now in the proper final birthing position. He is head down and his body is lying on the left. And he has been stuck there for at least 1 full week now. For the prior couple of weeks before that, he was head down but his body swiveled from left to right, depending on which side I slept on. And before that he was flipping head up/head down. He is right on time, compared to my other children. They were all birthed from that same position. It is great that he is being so cooperative. I don't want to need a cesarean section for my 6th birth, and almost no docs will deliver a breech baby any way except a c/section.

I read something online yesterday that made me think. This gal had given birth and she had taken her heparin shot that morning, not knowing she was about to start real labor. So she was not allowed to have an epidural. That makes sense. Bleeding into the spinal area could be bad. Nobody had mentioned that yet. Good thing I read around a lot. I was planning on doing it without an epidural anyway, but that is one more thing to take into consideration if I don't get much warning of the labor.

My bag is finally packed. And I have a list of last minute items to throw in. I'm beginning to feel more organized. I even picked up extra cam-corder tapes. I love birth videos. We have a nice one of our youngest right after he came into the world. It is so precious to see his first moments again.

Today is officially 4 weeks to go. 28 days. I expect to deliver between 3 and 4 weeks from now. Time is getting close.

OB appt update

The appt was mostly good, but a little bad, in my opinion. I spilled a trace amount of sugar into my urine. I know my body has a hard time handling sugar, and I haven't exactly been an angel about the sweets, but in 6 pregnancies, this is the very first time this has happened. I asked the doctor about it right away. He said as long as my fasting glucose is under 105 that I don't have gestational diabetes. My last 3 readings were 90, 88 and 80. On the other hand, I feel that I probably should lay off the frozen Snicker bars and other chocolate confections. It was probably a bad idea to buy them during pregnancy in the first place. I hope I don't develop GD. To do that would put me at high risk for diabetes later in life, and that is one horrible disease. I remember when I was taking differential diagnosis examinations in chiropractic college. I told a friend of mine if the question was multiple choice, choose diabetes because diabetes causes *everything*. I'm not there yet, but I had better watch my p's and q's. So that was the bad news.

On the good side, the baby's heartbeat was 146, and my blood pressure was 106 over 67 (immediately after the nurse told me about the blood sugar). The fundus measured 1.5 weeks ahead at 36cm. Doc asked me if I felt bigger this time. I said that I usually feel miserably large at the end of all my pregnancies, so it is hard to tell. He seems to be under the impression that this baby is big. I'm not sure to set much store by that, though, as I recall he may have said that in the past and it didn't come true.

They ran a FFN test again, because I have been getting a lot of contractions. And as long as they were at it, they went ahead and ran the beta strep test as well. Doc said my cervix was neither dilated nor effaced. Typical. My cast iron cervix isn't budging, no matter how many practice contractions I have. Fine with me. A full term delivery is fine. FINE! ;-D

And I had them call in the prescription for heparin and syringes. I am supposed to switch from Lovenox to heparin at 36 weeks, so a week from Monday. That way it only sticks around for 12 hours instead of 36 hours, and so it should be easier to stop the shots when I detect that labor has started. Hopefully.

Thoughts about blood thinners

I forgot to mention that I asked the amnio doc afterwards about the Lovenox protocol. I was aware that my OB wanted to consult with her about it and so I decided to see what her opinion was. She told me that if indeed I needed Lovenox, it might be dangerous to stop at 34 weeks, as the reproductive immunologist's paperwork recommends as a standard protocol. I was inquiring if it would be OK to re-start baby aspirin if I was going to stop Lovenox. I am concerned about losing the baby to a cord accident (as my SIL did at 38 weeks) or having a stroke (high pg hormones is like taking birth control pills over the age of 40 and that is a risk factor).

The amnio doc said that it might be a good idea around 36 weeks to switch from Lovenox to regular heparin. That way, the heparin could wear off faster when I began early labor and I could just skip a shot then. That makes sense. I can usually tell I'm about to deliver within 24 hours of the birth. Since it takes 36 hours for Lovenox to wear off, that could pose a problem. The heparin shot needs to be taken every 12 hours, and that would increase the chances that I would be able to control the situation. She didn't think that baby aspirin would cause a problem with bleeding too much during delivery. But I know for a fact that when I take it at the same time as the Lovenox I get uncontrolled bleeding out of the injection sites, and large hematomas (blood-filled areas) when I strike myself, such as hitting my shin against a hard chair. Kind of scary.

The kids got their Knotts Berry Farm name tags today and went to the wardrobe area and found out what they would be wearing. They are so excited and so am I. It is great to find a job where they don't mind seasonal workers.

Remember to look at the bottom of the blog for an updated pic of the kids. They were all in the pool together, for once, yesterday and I decided to take advantage of the photo opportunity. I love them all so much. I can't believe that we will be adding another precious boy to the group. Thank you, G-d.