9.5 month details

This weekend I hit 9.5 months. As enjoyable as the end of my pregnancy has been, I am glad this is the end. I am definitely ready to have a baby on the outside. Our most recent midwife appointment was Wednesday when there was some excitement because a baby was born just as we came in the door. We've been at the birth center when a mom was coming in to deliver, but this was the first time we were there when the baby was born. While our midwife was busy cleaning up, we went over to the hospital to have some lab work done. I just needed a complete blood count, but I had been putting it off for two weeks. While we were in the lab waiting room, David actually got a phone call from Sister Mary Hemophilia reminding him of his Catholic duty to donate blood every six weeks. Thank goodness there are people like David who are willing to have blood drawn for the sake of strangers, while I have to be coerced into doing it for my own health and family. I was not as big of a baby as the first time, but I'm happy all the blood work is over, and I'm even happier that I was able to arrange having my blood drawn only twice during pregnancy.

I was very concerned that all of my panicking about the blood work would raise my blood pressure for my appointment. I had been a little concerned about it because I have gotten really puffy in the last two weeks (if you look at the maternity photos, my poor hands look like catchers' mitts, and I can no longer wear any rings), but my blood pressure was just where it has been, 90/50.

As we're heading into the home stretch, I have been busy trying to turn the baby who has been posterior (with its back in line with mine). I had acupressure last weekend which really helped to alleviate some of the lower back pain caused by a posterior baby, and it was able to move the baby slightly. Since then I have been doing positioning exercises every day which hopefully will help. (15% of babies enter labor in the posterior position and most will rotate at some point. It is not dangerous in itself to have a posterior baby, but the labors are generally considerably longer and more painful than anterior labors.) The baby has also dropped which is good news because it means that we're getting closer, and it makes it easier to breathe, but I have a more pronounced pregnant gait, and I go to the bathroom a lot more frequently.

The waiting game has begun though, and as much as I like games, I don't care for this one. When it comes to surprises like "boy or girl?" at least then we know it is either one or the other. That is not much of a surprise. When I think about the fact that I could pregnant for another 29 days before I become dangerously post-dates, it seems like way too many options for the baby's birthday. Perhaps there is a reason that patience is a virtue.