36 weeks, people! I had an appointment with my OB on Wednesday to check on my cervix and the baby’s position; I’ll be going in weekly now to keep tabs. As extremely embarrassing as pelvic exams always are, I did really want to know how close I was to delivery. Not super close—it seems. Baby’s head is very low (meaning he’s not breech—yay!), and I’m 50-75 percent effaced (that seems like a wide range, right?), but I’m only dilated about 1 centimeter so far. I was expecting 3 centimeters because I tend to walk around like that for a few weeks at the end of every pregnancy, but I’ll take the 1 because we’re going out of town for the long weekend!
So, I’m hoping my next blog post will not be the story of how I had to deliver the baby in the car during our 8 hour road trip to Colorado and back. Also, I’m hoping my best friend’s husband will not have to perform an emergency delivery while we’re there. (He’s a radiologist, not an OB, but I figure he could deliver a baby in a pinch.) I’m just not sure we could maintain the friendship after they see me exposed like that! I’d have to say, “Thanks for delivering the baby and being our friends for the last 15 years, but peace out.”
At the OB’s, he also swabbed for Group B Strep, which they do routinely. It was uncomfortable but not terribly painful. However, I’ve been feeling a little different since then, so I wonder if anything was coincidentally disrupted or hurried along. I kept feeling like I needed to have a bowel movement throughout the rest of the day, but I really didn’t need to. I’m thinking I must have been feeling the pressure of the baby. It’s also a strange sensation when my bladder tells me to pee, but I can’t until I shift around and get my uterus in the right position to allow me to go. Too much information?
From now until my due date, June 22, I have 27 days and up to four weekly doctor’s appointments. Only 26 days until my mom flies in from Pennsylvania. If baby comes before that, things will get interesting! My husband has exactly 2 days of paternity leave: the day the baby is born and the day after. He also works 45 minutes away, so if I go into labor in a hurry, I’ll be knocking on my neighbors’ doors to find a ride to the hospital.
SOURCE:http://www.pnmag.com/blogs/week-36-its-the-final-countdown/
