Here we are, right at 25 weeks come tomorrow. I can safely say that lately I have been feeling about what I had been feeling last time 4 weeks later in the pregnancy. My first bout of discomfort came at 27 weeks last time and 23 weeks this time. It could be worse, I suppose. I'll rock along for now, but I hate to see where we are at 36 weeks!
I had my 24-week appointment earlier this week and had the sudden urge to ask my midwife how often they do C-sections in their practice. I mean, this might have been a good question to ask the first pregnancy, but honestly, I was so naive that a C-section wasn't even on my radar. I think I have learned so much about pregnancy and delivery SINCE giving birth (having gotten hooked on Baby Story while I was on leave and then all the shows on Discovery Health after we got DirecTV), that I didn't know a whole lot, relatively speaking, prior to giving birth. If I'd had to have a C-section, I would have been completely unprepared.
I was happy to learn that they do all that they can to avoid a C-section if it's not something that you want. I had such a great experience doing it the other way that it's the only thing about my "birth plan" that I'm adamant about getting out of this experience (or, on second thought, maybe I'll change my mind right here and opt for a C-section just so I can avoid having to use the term "vaginal birth").
I know that things can happen and that I do need to keep an open mind to having a C-section if the circumstances warrant it. The feedback I got from my midwife, though, was that Northside is notorious about pushing for a C-section the moment you hit a slight bump in the road. She said that she's come close to getting herself written up a couple times advocating on behalf of her patients who didn't want it and where she didn't feel it was warranted. I'm happy to hear that - I knew she was a bulldog when it comes to fighting for her patients, but I had never really asked about her (and my doctor's) stance on C-sections. If it was something I wanted, they'd be happy to do it, but if not, they're only going to push it if they feel it's absolutely necessary.
Having had an uneventful pregnancy and birth with Liam, my chances are greater of avoiding it. We'll see what happens, though. Like I said, I'm preparing myself for the possibility, but I'll be really sad if I can't have that experience again. I think the main reason, for me, is that I know I can immediately hold her after she's born. I don't want to wait a second longer than I have to...I want her to come out and come right to me. Although all of it was a haze with Liam, I do remember THAT moment, when I saw his face right up next to mine for the first time. He looked like he was screaming, but he wasn't making a noise yet.
That's the moment I'll never forget. I am thankful for this picture because it does help me remember.
My midwife also mentioned that we could induce as early as 39 weeks. They usually do inductions on Mondays, so that would put us at June 7. I'm not really sure how I feel about planning another induction ahead of time like that. I'm definitely not opposed - I did have a great experience with it last time. I would, however, like to know what it would be like to go into labor on my own. I don't really want to make any decisions right now, but it's nice to know that that option is there. I really didn't want to induce last time, but when your due date comes and goes and you feel like you don't have another day left in you, attitudes tend to shift.
In other news, we have our plans a little more ironed out now as far as the nursery and Liam's room go. Liam's grown a little bit since I wrote about not wanting to get him out of his crib yet...He's just shy of 36" tall and can put his whole leg out over the rail of his crib as we watch him try his best to get out. We're not worried that he's going to throw himself out of the crib tonight or anything, but we do worry that we'd get to that point in the midst of having a newborn. We had decided to do it maybe about 2 months prior, but I think we're getting to the point that we're ready to go ahead and do it.
I was apprehensive for awhile there because he went through a 2-3 week phase where he was very resistant to bedtime. He'd fight us when we tried to sit him in his rocker or when we tried to turn the light off and then when we put him into his crib. Thankfully that has passed, and the bedtime moments are once again some of the sweetest.
Some of the reasons we want to go ahead and do it:
-I can't wait to cuddle up in bed with him to read him his stories.
-Daylight Saving time is a rough transition. I'd like to get the big boy bed transition out of the way so that we're not dealing with two transitions simultaneously.
-We don't particularly want to be dealing with a serious injury when he suddenly does learn to climb out.
-It will be nice to get the nursery set up so that we can worry about one less thing.
I think there may have been others, but those are our justifications...They're mainly the things I keep telling myself to convince myself that we are not, in fact, insane. We'll see how it goes. We are perfectly aware that there will be no more listening to him babble on the monitor for 45 minutes before we finally drag ourselves out of bed to get him up on a Saturday morning. We can probably count on seeing his little face over the side of our bed in the middle of the night every now and then. I imagine we'll be walking him back to his bed over...and over...and over each night. I have no idea how he'll take to nap time if getting out of bed is an option. But, we do have to face it, and we want to be completely in a good place once our lives get rattled up once more. Hopefully this one will be as surprisingly easy as giving up paci's was.
Oh parenting decisions...
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