Coming to the End...and the Beginning

It's hard to believe that I'm into the last month of the last trimester, but it's true. We are both healthy, and for the most part, things are as they should be. I am as big as a house, or I feel that way anyway. Big and clumsy, like a beached whale. I'm up to 152 lbs, but it's still all in my belly, so I really can't complain. The doctor tells me that everything is good: my weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and iron levels, and who knows what else. It's all good. All the things I'm feeling--achy back, swollen feet, fatigue-- are perfectly normal for a woman in her last month of pregnancy, and I'd say I've got it good. Especially that since now Brandon is home from Virginia (yay!) I have someone to help me put on my shoes and rub my back. :) Still, I'm certainly feeling ready for Elora to make her appearance, and to move on to the next stage.

Elora herself is getting big too. She's up to nearly 6 lbs, according to the sonogram calculations. She's just about out of room in there... I can feel every little move she makes. I feel her squirming all the time, so I think I must even be feeling her twitch in her sleep!

The only hiccup is that she is still breech, and because she is so big, it isn't likely that she will be turning sometime in the next few weeks. So, Dr Krauss has recommended that we deliver by scheduled cesarean instead of waiting for me to go into labor on my own, and Dr. Mayer at the hospital agrees with him. I'm not too excited about this, but they have both assured me that this is what will be safest for me and Elora both. I'd kind of expected that I would need to deliver by cesarean, so I was prepared for that much at least, but I hadn't anticipated that they would want to go ahead and schedule it. I guess I'd been thinking that they would just do it, when I went into labor. But they would like to avoid an "emergency" cesarean, so we have scheduled it for about 2 weeks prior to my due date in the hope that I will not go into "spontaneous labor" before then. Monday, March 23 is the magic day; a few days earlier would be too soon, and a few days later is cutting it too close to my due date. They've asked me to go in mid-afternoon on Sunday, they will deliver Elora early the next morning, and Dr. Mayer said I can expect to be sent home on Friday or Saturday. I will be awake for the procedure, and they will allow Brandon to be in the room with me. Thank goodness! It'll be such a relief to have him by my side, holding my hand. And, they don't have an all-cesarean-babies-go-immediately-to-ICU policy, so (if all is as it should be) I will still get to hold her right away.

It's a pretty scary prospect. For all that it will be much faster, and will allow me to bypass the wait-and-see anxiety of waiting to go into labor and the pain of labor itself, and will be a less stressful transition for Elora, the operation is scarier to me than natural childbirth. Perhaps because my body was designed to accommodate that sort of delivery, but not to be cut openn. Even expecting it as I was, it seems both more imminent and more final, to have it penciled in my calendar. And I'm feeling a bit short-changed, as if I'm going to miss some element of the experience that should rightfully be mine. But, I'm smart enough to realize that unless she turns (which is highly doubtful) this is the best thing for both of us. That is the most important thing, and my fears frustrations and disappointment pale by comparison. I still feel all of those things (I think I would be crazy not to!) but they are tempered by the knowledge that this is what's best for my baby.

So, there you have it folks! Bran and I will be proud new parents, just 3 short weeks from now. I have one more check up between now and then, but I don't think I'll be doing another update unless there us something big to share. The next baby post, then, will probably be a birth announcement. Crazy, huh?