Today I had another midwife appointment, bright and early. This made for a short wait out front, and not too long of a wait in the examination room. As usual, I peed in a cup (must have been fine), was weighed (145.5, up one-and-a-half pounds from the last few appointments, so probably good that I actually gained something, and kind of funny that she actually was so kind to such a pregnant lady to give me the half-pound rather than rounding up... and, besides, I was actually wearing jeans today because of the cooler weather!), and had my blood pressure taken (100/70).
I saw yet another new midwife today, Emily. I also really liked her -- I have yet to meet one that I do not like, so I guess that is a definite positive for the practice. She also is not yet delivering babies. She has two young children of her own and said she was excited to be back at work, but not quite ready to make the commitment of being on call. Totally understandable. I actually confirmed with her that, as of now, Margaret and Anjli are still the only two midwives out of the bunch who are delivering, so I will definitely get one of them, which I am pretty excited about. Of course, getting Margaret again would be awesome, but I really love Anjli too, so there should be no disappointment whatsoever, which is a fantastic feeling going into this whole process. Apparently Linda will be delivering babies in the next few weeks, but God help me if I am still pregnant at that point. Actually, that was one of my questions for Emily today -- I could not quite remember how long past my due date they will let me go. I knew it was at least a week, but maybe two, and she confirmed that it is, in fact, two weeks past. She said there would obviously be a lot of dialogue between me and the midwives during those two weeks just to make sure everything was okay. And she also said that if it came to induction, inducing a second birth is a lot different than inducing a first birth with a woman's body who has never gone through the childbirth process before. Apparently it would most likely be an easier process for me since I have birthed before, if it really came to that.
Overall, the visit with Emily was pretty routine and abbreviated. She asked me if I had any questions, and besides the one above, I just asked if what Helen told me about when to call regarding labor was accurate. She said everyone might say something a little different, but she would say to call when contractions are about five minutes apart, are lasting a minute, have gone on for about an hour, and I have tried everything to stop them (take a warm bath, go for a walk, relax, drink water). So a bit different from the eight to ten minutes Helen was telling me. Basically I figure I will probably have a pretty good idea of when to call once it is all going down.
She felt around on my belly, measured me, and listened to the baby's heartbeat. Everything checked out fine, and she confirmed by looking in my chart that the results from last week's ultrasound looked good. So we just continue to wait. I will be 40 weeks on Saturday, so we shall see when this little miss decides to arrive! As of now, I am scheduled to see the midwives again next Wednesday.
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