Somebody's Not Cooperating . . .

Good news from my doctor's appointment today -- my blood pressure was picture perfect, my midwife gushed over my 100% history of negative protein and sugar tests, and I'd actually lost a pound.

And that was about it.

Then I got all (unnecessarily) disappointed, and kinda mopey the rest of the day. The midwife checked the heartrate with the doppler about 30 times, in about 15 different spots on my stomach -- the entire time looking very concerned and muttering stuff like, "That has to be a head . . . wait, that can't be a head . . . " Which had me ready to ask, "You mean like this baby has two, or that there's another head in there?!" Turns out I'm not carrying surprise twins or a baby with a head on each end, and fortunately not even a breech baby -- just a very oddly lying posterior baby who refuses to engage his head where it belongs, and is facing 'sunny side up.' Not really the biggest deal at this point, but a little disheartening to hear, as it's not exactly the most advantageous position for labor. (There's still plenty of time for him to turn around and get into place, with almost two weeks left 'til my due date. I just wanted some nice, clear, 'things are working out exactly to plan' news today -- like, "Hey look at that! He's further down than he was last time, his head's engaged in the pelvis, and you dilated another two centimeters! Go you and all that progress!") But instead he's posterior and my dilation hasn't changed at all since I was 36 weeks.

I'd told Greg going into this appointment, after a weekend of pretty strong 'pre-labor' symptoms that I wanted to see some 'progress', "Although I'm gonna go in there and either find out I'm still dilated to a 2 and be disappointed, even though it means nothing 'cause I could go into labor 8 hours later . . . or I'll be thrilled to find out I'm suddenly a 4, but labor won't start for three more weeks and I'll be overdue . . ." On an intellectual level, I'm fairly realistic about the fact that cervical exams during the last trimester really do mean jack . . . I know people who walk around dilated to a 5 for weeks before labor starts, and others who are told they're not even starting to dilate and thin out, and go into labor that night. It's all just an evil mind trip played on poor, vulnerable pregnant women. Of course, even knowing this, I totally wanted to find out if I'd 'made any progress' today, setting my own self up for disappointment. Will I never learn?!

So, posterior oddly positioned baby who refuses to get his head and body into position, no further dilation and a fairly stressful little doppler session rounded out my appointment.

The cool thing though -- coming from the midwife who's last major recommendation to me was "try to lie on your side for several hours a day" (something I don't do anymore, since my blood pressure rose back up amongst the living), she has requested I rock in a rocking chair "while you watch two or three of your favorite shows, or a movie or something" everyday, to move the baby further down between my hips (something about the rocking motion). (Along with a lot of walking, but as she put it, "You're nine months pregnant and it's approaching summer -- how much are you really gonna want to walk!? Walk as much as you can, rock in your chair the rest of the time -- it's a lot less tiring.") Pretty soon she's gonna be telling me to take a spa day, get in a couple long bubble baths and make sure I get some quality 'me-time' in . . . I really like this woman.