Well, my stomach muscles have finally lost the fight.
It looks like I’ve dropped and I can actually breath and there is space between the bottom of my boobs and my stomach, but I’m actually measuring 3 cm larger than last week. All of the stomach muscles in the lower half of my stomach have just given up and have let loose. If you look in the pictures from this week and then compare to last week…there is a whole lot more baby popped out in the lower half of my stomach than there used to be.
And, he’s not dropped – his head is still up and floating.
I had my 37 week appointment yesterday and things are looking good. Little Man’s heart rate was 144 beats per minute and he’s happy and growing. He’s still laying head down and with his back to my right side. He’s been in that position for a while now. So we’re not expecting him to have any drastic movements or shifts….he’s been pretty happy there.
I had a really bad afternoon on Wednesday and after holding myself together….I finally lost it yesterday morning at my midwifes. I just couldn’t stop crying. It bothered and scared me so badly that I hadn’t felt him move and that I couldn’t get him to move for almost half an hour.
Here’s what happened……On Wednesday morning, I made a big batch of soup and then a huge pot of rice and beans. While the rice and beans were simmering, I made a double batch of Apple Hemp muffins, then another double batch of Zucchini muffins and then another double batch of pumpkin carrot muffins. I wanted to be able to freeze a bunch of them for when our little man comes. They are an easy, high fiber, healthy quick snack!
Around 1:30-2pm, I realized that I didn’t remember feeling the baby move while I was cooking and baking and that’s unusual. He’s big and strong enough now and I usually feel him move fairly regularly all day, even when I’m busy and doing things.
So I figured that while my last batch of muffins was baking, that I’d go and lay down on the couch and I should be able to get him to move then. I sat down on the couch and put my feet up and waited……nothing! So I poked at him a bit to see if I could wake him up and again……..NOTHING! I needed to go and check on the muffins, so I did and they were fine, but I still hadn’t felt him move….at this point, it’s been about 20 minutes since I realized that I hadn’t felt him moving. I contemplated laying down on the floor because I wondered if me laying flat would encourage him to stretch out and start moving, BUT……..that brought me WAY TOO CLOSE back to the Sunday that I found out that Nathaniel had died. I had done the exact same thing, trying to get him to move – I’d laid down on the carpet in my living room and couldn’t get him to move around. I didn’t want to do that because of the whole “What if’s?????” that were rolling around in my head and yet I needed to do something.
I did lay down and after about 5-7 minutes I felt one little movement but I honestly wasn’t sure if it was a real purposeful movement or if it was a leg that just slipped around inside there. (I know how morbid that sounds and yet it was my reality at one point and so I do wonder and question…) Then he moved a bit more and I could tell that they were purposeful movements and shortly after that he got the hiccups…….those were honestly the most amazing feeling hiccups that I’ve ever felt in my life.
And from that point, I felt him move quite regularly through the rest of the evening.
After my meltdown in the midwife’s office, she sent me home with a doppler. She did ask me about sending me for a Non Stress Test, but as I explained to her…..while it feels great for the moment, almost as soon as it’s done, I start to question and wonder. See, I don’t doubt my bodies ability to be pregnant. I don’t doubt my ability in labour and delivery. What I do doubt and question, is if my baby will stay alive long enough to to be born.
We’ve never found any reason for why Nathaniel died or for why I lost any of the others and to have no reason means that we also can’t take active measures to prevent anything from happening. I’ve managed to hold it all together for a good part of this pregnancy, but I’m finding these last few weeks to be more difficult than the previous weeks…..I think that I’m so invested in this (and him) now and the thought of losing him (even if in reality it is only a remote possibility) is so SO difficult to handle.
And so though a NST would be nice, it’s not really helpful, but she did want me to take home a doppler so that I wouldn’t have to deal with another half an hour of stressing out……If I question or wonder…..BAM! Instant info!
I’m into my once a week appointments now, but really, this baby can’t come fast enough, as far as I’m concerned. The sooner he’s here and safe in my arms….well, technically at that point I should be able to breath easier, but in all actually it took a few weeks before I felt like that with Siah.
In other lighter news, I’m swollen and puffy enough that I gained 4 pounds in one week. How horrific is that? I know it’s mostly water weight, as this morning I was down a pound from yesterday, and that was regardless of the fact that I woke up with puffy, swollen feet.
I meant to pick up a herb to help with that yesterday at my midwife’s, but the meltdown kind of took over the appointment and I totally forgot.
At this point, it’s just a waiting game. My due date is June 25th but any time now would be just fine with me.
