Friday, August 15, 2014

Old hat

I've been breaking up the remaining three weeks of school work (please end soon!) with assorted "getting ready" tasks like having our cars serviced/detailed, collecting all necessary medical paperwork, finalizing my birth goals and packing hospital bags.  Now that the nursery is more or less finished, I cannot be lulled into a false sense of comfort.  There's so much time, so little to do! -- wait, strike that.  Reverse it.

By Labor Day - the holiday, not our daughter's birthday - we should be ready to roll in the event of a Code Red.  To call placenta previa unpredictable is too much of an understatement.  I'm beginning to realize, following Tuesday's appointment, that this is a situation taken extremely seriously by the professionals.  My OB told me that she has yet to have a previa patient make it to a full term scheduled birth without some kind of emergency intervention.  Grrrrrrreat.  That's why, dear zen , my days of savasana, at least as rigorously as I was doing it, are at an end.  Namaste, yoga class.  You've been wonderful for 5 months but now I'm supposed to cut back.     

Some days I feel totally fine, almost like my non-pregnant self, and then there are days like Wednesday when I can hardly get out of bed for more than a few hours at a time.  It try to explain the sensation to Rhett without sounding like a whiner.  I know what it took for us to get to this point and despite my gratitude for the present situation, I do feel that I am entitled to share my emotions/thoughts on the experience of pregnancy just like any other woman.  It hasn't been easy these last few weeks.  I was absolutely fine until Week 30 and then it all came crashing over me as the reality of the situation hit, showing new physical symptoms that are, thankfully, temporary.

What I'm feeling is not pain in the sense of what I experienced last summer but it is uncomfortably consistent like a pebble in your shoe or an eyelash in your eye that you just cannot get out.  Imagine you have swallowed a 4 pound stone and that stone is lodged in your pelvis, pressing on your bladder and threatening to push it's way out of your urethra at any moment: this is what placenta previa (with a breech baby on top!) feels like.  It's like walking around with a weight between your legs that kicks and punches and bucks like a bronco against neighboring organs and causes an alarming amount of vaginal discharge.  Who knew I'd be going through panty liners like I never stopped getting my period?!

I call her the Princess on the Pea (or pee?) because she is literally resting on the cushy vascular organ supplying her with oxygen and nutrients.  Most babies will only occasionally bump into their placentas but this kid has a fluffy tempurpedic under her little bum and she enjoys playing with it.  I read that at this stage, babies are aware of their umbilical cords and will sometimes try to flick them out of the way like a jump rope.  I've definitely felt her struggling with something in there, either her fist or the cord.  I think of young Indy learning to snap his bullwhip in utero.  She's very strong now so that her thumps move my arm or hand off of my belly with great force.  That's a good sign.  As long as she stays in there for a few more weeks, I can put up with the rest of the unpleasantness.

The good thing is, when it comes to C-Day, this is not my first rodeo.  My recent hospital stays for abdominal surgeries have left me feeling prepared when it comes to the packing list.  Simple: eye mask, mineral spritz, toothbrush, ginger chews, nursing bras, Vaseline and wear their mesh panties/pads.  Those things are so comfy.  Also, pack Gas-X, colace, dulcolax and take them.  Before surgery.  It's going to be a struggle, the first time post-partum, but I know what's in my arsenal. 

I don't think I'll have the boatload of emotions going in that first time moms who have never had surgery before have since I more or less know what to expect.  If I am anxious for any reason, it is because I sincerely hope that my number one birth goal is met, barring any complications during the procedure.  I want to hold my daughter in the OR.  I want to feel her, still slick with fluids, on my bare chest.  I carried her for 9 months and I would be extremely disappointed to be robbed of this experience just because of my complications.  We'll find out more at our next appointment in terms of what is hospital procedure at Morristown v. what we can "ask" for during the birth.  That is my only anxiety, that I'll be separated from my daughter during that first magical hour after birth, and I wish to avoid that, if at all possible.     

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