OVERDUE - My 40 Week App't Craziness...

So I was wrong again…

I am 40 weeks pregnant. Technically, 40 weeks and 1 day. Here’s the deal. The change of dates I previously mentioned were due to information given to me by my ultrasound technician at the ultrasound last week. I didn’t have a conversation with my doctor about these findings at all, so all the details were pretty much in the air.

I went to the doctor yesterday. Waited entirely too long to get in but bygones. Finally get in and my doctor comes in. Dr. B looks like a raccoon. His eye sockets are a fiery reddish purple. Horrible looking. And he has some older style glasses on him. He asks how I am as I ask simultaneously how he is. Turns out the doc got in a car accident and that’s the reason he looked the way he did. Rob stayed in the room with me for the entire time, which rather surprised me as they did an internal and all. Though he wasn’t really observing or anything.

In any case, Dr. B was his usual super fast and extraordinarily obsessively precise doctor he usually is. Quick to make mention of things with little explanation. Very do do do. Not that this is a bad thing but it kind of catches you of guard. He is a marvel of efficiency.

So the breakdown of the doc’s app’t.

Although my ultrasound technician told me the week before that I
look more along the lines of 37 weeks rather then 40 weeks, Dr. B is keeping my
original due date. It is their policy not to change due dates at this juncture
of the pregnancy because each baby is unique and although it’s measuring on
average smaller, it can in fact be full term.

The plan now is to just wait a week. They only really let you go
over a week to see if you’ll come naturally and then they induce.~Rob and I
don’t think that Dr. B had the ultrasound paperwork in my file. He was flipping
through all the documents and if it was in there, he hardly looked at it.

He did an internal and found that I’m pretty closed up. Nothing
seems to truly be happening in there BUT while doing the internal he did feel my
little booger move which means that he’s already down and in position. It’s just
he rest of my internal workings that need to catch up.

He tells me to get dressed and meet him outside. I do and Rob and I
are confronted with him writing up on a paper the directives for my induction.
He tells us to head over to the hospital for them to check me out. He wants to
ensure the amniotic fluid levels look good and wants them to monitor me and give
me a good once over. He tells me that if they see anything it’s a possibility of
me staying but that if all looks well (and it’s what he anticipated) they’ll
send me home and I’m to call the offices tomorrow to schedule an induction.

With that I’m out the door. I’m steadily freaking out. Rob seems relatively calm. We drive home. He makes me eat breakfast. I log onto work and take care of something and update my bosses with an e-mail.

Before we leave Rob grabs the camera. WHAT??? WHY? He says just in case. I have told the boy 100 times over that I do not want a camera while in labor and that I don’t anticipate anything happening today. Neither does he but ‘just in case.’ So I print out directions….how great is that that we know the general vicinity of the hospital but have only been there once and can honestly say that we weren’t really sure where it was…HA - and we head out. The drive there was uninteresting, we get there and park in their lot which was PACKED. And we start many of the same reoccurring conversation.

Rob – I’ll drop you off here

Me – why

Rob – so you don’t have to walk

Me – I can walk

Rob – I know but isn’t it better that you don’t

Me – NO, I want to walk

Fun. So we park far as hell cause, as I said, there is no parking and the lot is a paying lot too. GREAT. And we begin our walk. And Rob watches me and notices that the lane we are walking on is perfectly centered with the entrance of the hospital and the middle of the building. It’s a perfect shot he says. He insists on taking a picture.

IN A FREAKING PARKING LOT.

I feel like an absolute moron. As he is there with his camera setting up a shot. He’s insane. Absolutely INSANE. The boy needs help. Gratefully, this is the only picture he takes. And now he feels bad that he didn’t take a picture of me in the hospital bed. Only him.

So we walk up to the front doors and some lady comes out of the revolving door with 4 baby blue teddy bears and over 10 “it’s a boy” balloons. And Rob and I look at each other. He already knows what my mind is saying…How the hell can you prevent that from happening? Not that it’s not nice and all, but balloons? All over the place. I don’t get it. Does one really need balloons? And so many of them? When Kathy was in the hospital she kept getting flowers and sending them home with Eddie cause she found their overwhelming smell nauseating in her room. I understand saying congrats, but flowers that die and balloons. Are they really necessary? Especially when you’re in the hospital for 2 days. Just 2 days. But bygones. One should just be grateful for getting anything. Its people’s way of appreciating the circumstances that are going on. Seriously though, nothing is really necessary. The fact that a person came to visit at the hospital is the blessing and they do not need to come bearing gifts. I’m such a cynical person.

So we go inside and up to the 3rd floor and head for the P.E.T. dept. We enter the room and there’s a wife and husband there already sitting. Not knowing what else to do, we sit and a guy comes out of the office and invites us in to sit. He asks my name. I give it. He half way types it in. Looks up and turns to Rob and says “Are you Rob?” To which Rob eyes him oddly with a face that says ‘damn do I know you??’ and answers yes and the guy goes. I’m Julio. Jackie’s boyfriend.

Let me tell you, there is NO bigger relaxation technique then knowing someone who works in the division that you’re in, in the hospital. So he fills in all my information while informally talking to us. And I’m a mess of questions with regards to his job. He admits all the woman into maternity. He sees people like me who aren’t in labor just coming in to be checked out and he admits the full active labor people and the ones with problems. The range of emotions he must see in that room alone. Amazing. So he puts my bracelet on with all my details, has Rob sign paper for me (which was odd to have papers signed by him FOR me…I didn’t even have to sign them. Odd. Then we bullshit a bit more before I we sit in the waiting room. He informs the other couple there that the nurse should be right with them and returns to his office. Rob is reviewing the booklet thing they give you and eyeing the couple in front of us at the same time and before anything else happens, Julio tells me my room is ready. Damn. That was fast.

He takes us down the hallway to the antepartum rooms, introduces us to the nurse who puts us in a room and tells me to go pee. Which I do. When I come back I’m told to strip and get into the open back gown thing and she leaves. I leave my bra on cause, there’s no real reason to take it off and I’m one of those woman who prefers having her bra on at almost all times. It’s just more comfy that way. Rob’s conversation with me was funny.

So, the nurse comes back in and I sit in the bed. Can I must mention that hospital beds are rather comfortable. Or maybe it’s just me, but in my current state of pregnancy, the slight recline of the hospital bed is the optimal position. I did ask for 2nd pillow though. So she puts the monitor on my belly and the kids’ heartbeats are heard. LOUDLY. She had it at max output or something. Damn thing was…as Rob said “like surround sound” So Rob watches with curiosity as the heartbeats are monitored. 150ish BPM. She puts the automatic blood pressure thingie on me and asks me the 101 questions that are all NO’s except for the any surgery which is always appendicitis when I was 12 years old. She then lowers the monitor level, hands me my remote control for the TV and leaves the room.

Rob seems fascinated by the heartbeat monitor. The baby, on the other hand, decides to try to move the monitor. He becomes active, especially where the monitor is located. His movement makes his heartbeat spike and Rob becomes even more fascinated. I had to explain to him that the baby’s moving which is the reason it went up to the high 170’s. So we’re there for a little bit and end up watching some stupid VH1 show about the ridiculous amount of money celebs have spent on things this year and of course we come in on the ‘baby’ section and how Britney spent over $10K on one store alone and redecorated her house for the baby and…blah blah blah. So a resident doc comes in to do the ultrasound. Another 101 questions where everything’s a no and an internal which shows (no big surprise) that I’m not in the least bit dilated and onto the ultrasound where we find that I have a good deal of amniotic fluid (12oz). Normal quantities are 4 to I forget what the max is. So I’m good. Baby’s down and all looks well. All is ok. I’m discharged to be back (if I don’t come on my own) next week for induction.

I get dressed and they have me sign the discharge papers. Rob and I get up, stop by to say goodbye to Julio and we’re off. On the wait in the elevators, there’s a sign posted about breastfeeding classes and I show Rob the pump that they rent out (either weekly or monthly) as well as the one the hospital sells. Next to this they had a brochure for what had to be the weirdest looking thing I’ve ever seen. IT was a pump that was hands free that straps around like a tube top and has the pumps on each boob. It looks downright ridiculous and we both laughed like teenagers. Then the elevator came – down to the lobby, paid our parking ticket and headed to the car, along the way Rob was annoyed that he hadn’t taken the pic of me in the bed. In any case, at this point I’m calm. Ridiculously so.

On the drive home we decide to take what time we have to catch up on the shopping we have. The realization that this kid is coming if not in the next few DAYS definitely in the next week has brought on an eerie kind of calm to both of us. I think we finally BOTH realize that we need to value this time that we have with one another. Just us. It’s so limited now.

More to come.