Switching doctors and spinning babies

Switching Doctors
Maybe we're crazy, but we decided to switch doctors last week! No, not pediatricians, the baby doctor, the one we've been going to for the last 8 months. Eeek! We had been feeling a little uneasy about the practice we had chosen, but it never seemed like enough to go through the hassle of finding someone new and switching practices. Then, after our last visit, I decided that I was definitely going to have a different doctor if we ever had another child, so it seemed like it would be stupid not to switch now if we could!
Once I broke down and cried about how nervous I was about our doctor, Jordan did all of the work to make the switch happen. What a great husband huh! We contacted our birth class instructor, Stacy (who is amazing by the way, if you're ever considering trying to birth naturally, you should definitely take her classes!) for a recommendation. Apparently she told Jordan that she had been dying for us to ask her about our OB/GYN because she had some other couples who had bad experiences. One woman who had expressed a desire to try for an unmedicated birth was laboring and our doctor told her that she thought she really needed pain medication because she wasn't strong enough to do this without it. The laboring woman refused and went on to have her baby without using any meds. I definitely doubt need that kind of doubt sown in my mind when I'm in labor!
Stacy recommended a few different doctors and Jordan made all the calls to try to get us an appointment. The practice we were most interested in was Brothers and Crochet. Somehow having a doctor named "Crochet" seemed like destiny to me! Dr. Crochet had to approve the late transfer, however, so we had to wait a week to hear if she was going to take us as a patient.
We went on with our lives like normal, and when we were in the waiting room of our old OB for our next appointment, we got a call from Dr. Crochet's office that they would accept the transfer. So, we went about making that happen instead of seeing the old doctor.
Unfortunately, because of the timing, I never got an opportunity to talk to our old doctor about our desire to switch. I got a VERY uncomfortable phone call from her the next day stating that she was so surprised we had decided to change doctors. I'm sure she was, since we hadn't made the decision ourselves until the very last minute! I was so surprised to have her on the phone though that I couldn't really express anything useful to her.
If I had it to do over, I would tell her that I felt like there hadn't been enough communication about what the birth was going to look like. I had asked a couple of times if there was going to be a conversation at some point about what we wanted from the birth experience and she glibly replied, "If you have any questions, just ask them." Well, I didn't even know what questions I was supposed to have and I just wanted to have a discussion about how they generally practice and what I should expect.
Once I finally knew a little more about what I wanted from our delivery, I asked her if she wanted to set up a time to discuss our birth plan, and she looked at me like I had 3 eyes all of a sudden. As if she doesn't have any other patients who make a birth plan! Perhaps she didn't feel like a separate visit was necessary to talk about the birth plan, but then the correct response is, "That's ok, just bring it in next time and we'll go over it at your regular visit." Instead she hmmed and hawed and looked at me like I was an alien and couldn't seem to come to a verdict about whether this extra appointment was necessary or not.
I guess that's all to say that I didn't feel like we had clear communication. Perhaps we just did not understand each other very well, I'm not sure. I believe she is a competent physician who delivers healthy babies to healthy moms, but I was uncomfortable with her after all of my attempts to have discussions with her about birth. Maybe if I had birthed before it wouldn't have seemed like such a big deal, but in general, I like to be informed, and I did not feel that she facilitated that.

Spinning Babies
On a lighter note, our baby is stubborn! We learned in our birth class about ideal positioning for a baby when you go into labor. The best possible position is head down with their back facing out and more on the left of your stomach (left occiput anterior- LOA). So the face is looking at your tail bone and the bulk of the baby is on the left of your stomach. The next best position is the same, except with the bulk on the baby on the right (right occuput anterior- ROA). From there, you get into more and more difficult positions.
Well, after learning all of this, I was interested to discover that my baby was ROA, which is only in the next to best position. Because I want a perfect baby, I was determined to change this!
I went to spinningbabies.com, a website where they outline things you can do to encourage your baby to flip. Most effective is placing yourself in a variety of semi-upside down positions after drinking a lot of fluid. So, I started doing this.
After the first try of hanging out upside down for awhile, baby girl flipped to LOA immediately. I was so proud! What a good baby!
And then she flipped back overnight. *sigh*
So I proceeded with the upside down trials every few nights. She has flipped to LOA a few times, but she always manages to be back in ROA by the next morning! I guess she's just more comfortable there! I'm going to hang out upside down a few more times, I'm sure. Whatever you have to do for a perfect baby right :) No, really, I know she's not perfect....(or else she would have started in LOA!)

Things people say!

I am 35 weeks and 3 days pregnant.
Our baby is gaining about 1/2 pound every week
That's a pound to a pound and a half added to my abdomen in the last 2 weeks!
This is going to continue for the next month
I am getting big....fast

I know it's the baby that's growing, and not me really.
I know that when people say something about it, they really mean, "it's nice that your baby is growing so well"
but still, it's not nice to talk about how big someone is getting. You wouldn't say something like that to me if I wasn't pregnant. And just being pregnant doesn't make me feel much better about the rapid expansion of my belly. I am already uncomfortable and unable to move to because of my size, I know I'm big. I don't need to be told.

These are some of my favorite inappropriate quotes. If you're the perpetrator, don't worry, my feelings aren't hurt. Just take it to heart and remember for all of your future pregnant friends that there are nicer ways to talk to them about their pregnancy.

What was said: "You have 5 weeks left? Ya, you have that 5 week walk"
Could have said: "5 weeks left? I was so uncomfortable at the end of my pregnancy, how have you been handling it?"

What was said: "35 weeks huh. You look pretty big. You might go to term though, I mean, you are a big girl"
Could have said: "35 weeks huh. A lot of women go past term with their first, but it looks like you might deliver early" (this still references that I'm big, but I appreciate the sentiment that the end might be sooner rather than later)

What was said: "I think you've grown a whole inch since I saw you last" (last time I saw this person was 3 days before)
Could have said: "Your baby is growing so fast, she's going to be born before you know it!"

What was said: "You've gotten bigger just over the weekend!"
Could have said: "Isn't it nice to know that your baby only has a few more pounds to gain before she'll be ready to be born. I can't wait to meet her!"

Those are things people have said to me just in the last week. I try to have a good sense of humor, but it's hard to hear about how big you are so frequently. Good rule of thumb, ask about or comment about the baby, not the mom. I love to talk about my baby! I don't want to talk about my belly! Also, especially as the end approaches, try to include an encouraging phrase in every comment. At least I think those things would help. Perhaps I'm crazy though. I might change my mind about it tomorrow...I am pregnant after all. Doesn't that mean volatile?

Telling our friends

I had the great idea of using cookie cakes to tell all of my big groups of friends. We were going to have a cookie cake to tell my work friends, a cookie cake to tell my church friends, and a cookie cake to tell my college friends. The genius behind this plan is that I got to have 3 cookie cakes!!!
I brought the first cookie cake to the work Superbowl party on Superbowl Sunday. I was the most nervous about telling my work friends. No one else really has anything invested in whether or not you are pregnant. People at work are impacted by your pregnancy, so I was a little nervous about their reactions.
Pam Waber was the first one to open the cookie cake. She seemed confused at first and then asked someone nearby who it was who was pregnant. Of course no one else knew either, but then they realized that my last name was on the cake. Pam very discretely came over and asked me if I had something to share. The news exploded from there. Everyone was very excited for me and Jordan and reacted completely appropriately. Turns out there was no reason to be nervous at all!
One funny thing about telling people at work. Before dessert time at the party, our fellow, Pavel, asked me what I was drinking (there is usually a variety of alcohol at the party, and my drink was in a plastic cup so that it couldn't be identified). I told him I was drinking sprite. He jokingly said, "why, are you pregnant?" To which I replied, "yes." He didn't have much to say after that until the news was broken to everyone else.
We brought a cookie cake to choir when we were hosting choir fellowship. Because there had been a little bit of confusion about who exactly was pregnant with the first cake, we decided to make an announcement after rehearsal was over. Again, everyone was very excited for us. I hear ours is the first baby that has been born to someone actively in the choir in 30 years.
We hosted supper club at our house when I was pregnant enough that I though someone might guess the news. I wanted one of those pregnancy shirts that says, "what's kicking" or something. The only thing I could find in the time I had was one that said "I crave pickles." When I put it on, it fit really well and made me look even more pregnant, so I was sure that if I wore that, someone in supper club would figure it out. I'm not sure exactly how it happened at supper club. Someone put it all together before everyone had arrived and then everyone else got to discover it as they showed up.
All in all, it was a whole lot of fun. When I went to my OB visit after all of this, she said, "have you really gained 10 pounds since your last visit?!" I didn't realize I had and it was the first 10 pounds for me to gain in the whole pregnancy, but I'm not surprised in happened in the month when I had three cookie cakes!

It's a Boy! No wait... a GIRL!!!!

As a genetic counselor, I have come to believe that those 4D ultrasounds are dangerous. People who get them want to have pretty pictures of their baby and mostly don't realize that ultrasound technology is used for detecting birth defects. People who do them (especially for parents who just want pretty pictures) mostly are not medically trained or certified in any way that makes them qualified to be involved in the detection of birth defects. That said, we were ready to tell our friends about our pregnancy, we wanted to know the gender, and our next sono wasn't for 3 weeks, so I looked into them a little more.
It was cheaper to pay for one of the 4D sonograms than to go to our doctors office and pay for an extra one out of pocket (like $150 cheaper, probably because the 4D place doesn't have any medical expertise). Well, all we wanted to know was the gender, and I thought that was a pretty safe thing to ask for, so we went ahead and scheduled an appointment for a 4D sonogram. I wasn't going to use the sono for anything except the gender determination (no reassurance that there aren't any birth defects or anything like that), but I still felt conflicted about my decision.
We went with my mom and Jordan's mom, so they got to see the baby in real time with us. Our appointment was for 02/06/2010, the day I would be 17 weeks pregnant (the earliest they are willing to do gender determination).
I had already had some kind of intuition that the baby was a boy, and when the sonographer asked what I thought it was going to be, I didn't think twice about telling her. The sono got started and everyone was very emotional about seeing the baby. I was mostly amazed at the difference from the first sono to the second. They started going for the money shot almost immediately, but our little one was not being very cooperative. The legs were crossed and angled in a way that made it difficult to get the right view. Finally we thought we had the right shot and the sonographer thought "probably a boy". She wasn't sure about where the cord was though, so she looked around a little more to try to get a better view and find the umbilical cord. Finally, she decided she had a good enough view to declare that it as in fact a boy. She told us she was >90% sure.
We had never cared one way or another about the gender. We were a little nervous at first about a boy because both of us only ever had sisters, but I think we were over it by the time we left the office. I started looking for fabric samples for the nursery the next day. We told everyone our baby was a boy and we started to get really excited about our son.
Fast forward 3 weeks. We had our big diagnostic ultrasound on 03/04. I was 20 weeks and 5 days pregnant. While we were sitting in the waiting room, I jokingly said to Jordan, "what if they change the gender on us and tell us he's a girl!" Jordan just looked at me like that was the most appalling thing I could have said.
When we went in for the sonogram, the sonographer asked if we wanted to know the gender. We were mostly interested in using this sonogram to look for any birth defects, but we didn't want her to withhold any gender information from us. We told her we would like her to check, but that we had a sono three weeks before that showed it was a boy. The sonographer put the probe on my belly and the first thing that showed up on the screen was the money shot! She looked for maybe 2 minutes before declaring that in fact, our infant was a girl! In my shock, I said, "oh, you think it's a girl?!" to which the sonographer replied, "I don't think, I know!"
I'm not really sure what else happened during the sonogram. All of the organs and limbs looked fine, but I was pretty upset by the sudden gender change. It was like someone had stolen my baby boy out my belly and replaced him with some stranger. I think it took us about a week and a half to two weeks to really process and adjust to the change. I knew I had those negative feelings about 4D ultrasound for a reason. I guess I should have trusted my instincts, or at least reserved some amount of doubt about their ability to tell us the gender.
Our OB was nice enough to schedule us for another ultrasound on 03/22 that confirmed that indeed our baby is a girl! I have completely adjusted my thinking now, and I'm VERY excited about our baby girl. Let's just hope their aren't any more sudden changes when she is born!

Telling the Michels

We returned from Peru early in morning on Saturday, January 2nd. Our flight back was overnight, so when we arrived we had slept very little and were ready for some rest. We decided to grab a bite to eat with Jordan's mom, Debbie, and grandma, Nana (who very nicely agreed to pick us up from the airport so our car wasn't parked there for 2 weeks) and then go home for some rest. After a nap, we got all of the Christmas gifts together for Jordan's family and then went over to their house to visit with family that was in from out of town, exchange gifts, and of course, tell them our exciting news!
When we were in New York, there had been an outdoor sale that we perused for awhile. They were selling all kinds of random things, and one of the things that Jordan found was a onesie with a print of a rooster. Debbie really likes roosters, so he purchased the onesie, planning that we would use this to tell them the news. We had folded the onesie up so that you couldn't see the arms or the snaps, only the rooster. At first glance, it looked like a napkin or something (we hoped).
It wasn't really time to open gifts yet, so we had to finagle a way to have Debbie open just that one gift. We told her that she should just open this one right now, because it was kind of a joke rather than a real Christmas present and everyone in the family, including the out-of-towners, would probably like to see it. She finally agreed and sat down to open the gift. We got this one on video too!

I have to say Jordan's family's reaction makes for a better video. While both of our moms seemed to be speechless, Jordan's aunt was there when Debbie opened the onesie, and she exclaimed aloud so that everyone in the room knew what was going on. Since my mom was speechless and no one else but me and Jordan knew what was going on, it took a little longer in my family's video for everyone to catch on, which doesn't make for as exciting of a video. They both make me tear up a little every time I watch them though, and that is good video in any case!

Telling the Kings

Christmas in Peru!

We had plans to travel to Peru with my family for x-mas since the summer, when Alissa (my sister) found out she would be spending the year there as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV). I was very excited to go to Peru and to see Alissa, but also a little nervous about traveling again with morning sickness. Jordan was smart enough to mention these concerns to my OB/GYN who prescribed some nausea medication, just in case. Just having it in my possession was enough to ease my mind.
We left for Peru on December 22nd, and while the trek to get there was long, the nausea wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought it might be. I was armed with plenty of snacks and the medicine just in case.
We spent all day on December 23rd in Lima, Peru before catching a plane early the next morning to Arequipa, outside of Huanta, where we would met Alissa. The day in Lima may have been the hardest part of the trip because we were determined to keep the news secret until time to open gifts for x-mas.
We walked around Lima and ate and shopped some. We took some pictures. I love the one of me curled up in the sun because I think it's great to imagine the little embryo growing away inside. I was impressed that I fit in that space, but it's even greater that there were two people in there!
Another great picture I only recently saw that I find hilarious! I thought I had done a better job of hiding my general nausea and exhaustion than that!
We arrived in Huanta early on Christmas Eve. Alissa's host family had made plans for us to see Huanta, so we spent most of the morning and early afternoon traveling around Huanta with them. The tradition in Peru is for gift giving to happen on Christmas Eve. Once Jordan and I heard this, we were both so excited to finally be able to tell my family. We did still have to bide our time until there was a moment to spend with just the family. This finally came around in the late afternoon.
I had crocheted slippers for everyone (except my dad because they seemed too girly). We had everyone open the slippers at the same time. Then, there was an extra gift for my mom (baby slippers) and my dad got to open what we had brought for him (a kid's tool set). We were lucky to be able to video the moment. When you watch it, pay particular note to how no one really knows what's going on at first. My mom subversively hid the baby slippers back in their packaging so that no one else could see. They figured it out eventually, though it took some longer than others :)

My parents were already pretty sure that I was pregnant, come to find out. While I thought that I had always been a little motion sick in childhood (and therefore could get away with claiming motion sickness in Peru), my mother's memory was that I had never really been that motion sick. She said that she had been trying to figure out why I had motion sickness all of a sudden, and that really gave it away. My dad said he was sure when I had to make a pit stop and pee in the bushes while we were out around Huanta earlier that day. I guess I wasn't as sneaky as I thought!
While telling my family was definitely the highlight of the trip for me, the rest of it was pretty great too. I did end up using a fair amount of the nausea medication. I probably could have made it through without, but I wouldn't have been up for a lot of the hiking and tourism that we had planned. I would say the other main highlight was hiking down to the bottom of Colca Canyon (a day's hike). Best parts: 1) sliding on the dry dusty pathway so suddenly that I ended up on my butt! 2) sleeping in a dinky cabin. I can't even describe the "mattresses" 3) Arriving at the "oasis". Why didn't they warn us about the devil mosquitoes?!!! 4) riding out of the canyon on a donkey (and man am I glad we had a donkey!)

The First Sonogram

We called the doctor the very day after finding out we were pregnant and got scheduled for a routine sonogram to verify and date the pregnancy. Our sonogram wasn't scheduled until December 1oth.
I was looking forward to the sonogram for all of the normal reasons, but mostly I was excited to do something that was going to finally make it feel "real". In the back of my mind I was also a little worried that I was having a hysterical pregnancy (we were watching Glee at the time, and Will's wife had just been diagnosed with one)
We went to the OB's office and I was so excited to finally be there with my husband. No kidding I used to imagine the day when we would be in the office together expecting our first child, and this was it! They brought us into the sono room (in the basement of the office) and had me lay back on the exam table. Jordan was sitting next to me, but it was awkward to hold hands or anything, so we were just next to one another. She turned on the monitor, and lo and behold, there was actually a baby in there! Well, an embryo to be technical, but still some form of life that had the potential to be a baby. I was NOT having a hysterical pregnancy.
It was pretty amazing to see our little peanut bouncing around on that screen. There really was so much movement. Jordan and I were both almost moved to tears. Only almost though. I think we were maybe too nervous to get all the way there. All she had at that point was a butt and a head with a blob in the middle (a brain I think).
The sonogram put our due date at July 17th. This was different than the due date calculated by LMP (July 24th). The moral of the story was, our baby was going to be born on my birthday! I guess we'll see, but it seems kind of inevitable that I will lose my birthday season to this child. *sigh*