Rebuild from Depression Blog

All's well. I'm just about 33 weeks now and trying desperately to prioritize my life in these final days.

Baby appears healthy. The ultrasound showed no markers of anything bad that I am aware of. I did ask the ultrasound tech not to tell me if she found only one marker of Downs or some other problem. I wouldn't have agreed to an amnio with one marker and I just didn't need the stress. Of course, when she told me of no markers, I wanted to ask if there really were no markers and sucked it up instead. She did not appear to spend extra time on anything, so I told myself there were probably no markers. (And here I am obsessing over markers which is exactly why I asked not to know.)

Baby is active. With Frederick my placenta was anterior and I didn't feel a lot of movement. This baby's placenta is posterior, on the back side of my uterus. I feel like my childhood cat named "Mother Kitty." When she was in late term pregnancy, the kittens appeared to wake up together (likely one woke up the others) and would begin to kick. Poor Mother Kitty would lay on her side tolerating a few dozen kicks around her middle. I've got a bit of a show going on here myself.

Baby is likely vertex and posterior. Frederick was breech and came out the hard way. Whomever out there gets elective c-sections must be a little bit crazy. Weeks of recovering cannot be worth avoiding the hours of labor. I may or may not find out. At the last prenatal appointment, the midwife began some if-then discussion about "if baby is breech, we'll schedule a section around this date, if not we'll schedule around that date." I cut her off and said I would just like to wait and see what we've got in December. Too many "if-thens" are bad for my brain. I'll worry about too many "ifs." My case is complicated by the prior c-section and my lack of any history of vaginal birth. We cannot plan a vaginal birth, but depending on the circumstances of my arrival at the hospital, it could go any way at all. My mom's labors lasted two to three hours and we are 90 minutes from the hospital. Like I said, there are far too many "ifs." We'll just see what happens.

Baby dropped and I'm having "practice contractions." Frederick never dropped and I didn't get very big with him (I still had abdominal muscles). This time around I am learning what it means to have your center of gravity off. I'm not waddling like a duck, but apparently I am walking a bit different. Contractions have started and have gotten my attention. I had some in August and ended up on bedrest. These current contractions send me to bed as well, but I am less concerned that they are some early omen. I expect I am just warming up.

My brain is healthy. I suppose this is the most incredible news. I am already four weeks passed the point of my major melt-down in the last pregnancy and I'm still trucking along. I got a call from a client about five weeks ago with the news that a deadline was three weeks earlier than we thought. We had to mobilize in a big way to meet it and I'm still recovering, but the amazing thing about it is that I didn't go bananas. My mother was impressed and amazed. She said, "This would have caused a major meltdown even when you were not pregnant." Good for me.

My approach has been a whole lot of self-care. I rest when I'm tired. I rarely go anywhere because it does wear me out. I am a bit disappointed in this issue. We took a short trip to the coast a month ago so that I could get in one last bit of travel. It was great but I paid for it. It's probably better to forego the trips, keep everything on track, and go on a trip sooner postpartum. I should add that we live in the middle of nowhere and so "trips" really means "visits to civilization."

Included in the self-care is less contract work and on this issue I should add "the economy really sucks." Sure, I can act like I'm not taking on new work because I'm pregnant, but it begs the question how much work is actually out there. Not a whole lot. It's a great time to have a baby I suppose since I need to reduce my workload anyway.

A big part of the self-care is eating well. I tend to go in cycles of eating exceptionally well and then not-so-well but not-so-bad either. I take supplements and will post about them soon. Eating well for me tends to be a whole lot of protein and little or no wheat. I try to eat a lot of beneficial fats such as those high in Omega 3 fatty acids. Some people have asked me if I am still drinking raw milk. Most people know me to be a raw milk drinker but also know it's on the pregnancy "avoid" list. We've had listeria in our raw milk market and I am a bit listeria-obsessed. I actually heat my lunch meat or leftovers (also on the listeria list). It takes just a few bacteria to cross the placenta to begin a chain of actions that ends in early deliveries or miscarriages. It is hard to imagine what a preemie baby due to raw milk drinking would do to my fragile brain. Baby care and brain care are first. I'll drink the milk later.

In these last seven weeks, I'll pull the trigger on the book lest I have to go back for a total rewrite on the new postpartum experience. That would kill me or I would just give up. While I am done with contracts, we're still working on marketing QEIA reports to about 500 California schools. Because I don't have enough blogs, I started a data blog related to that work. My favorite entry there so far may be about my husband Sander's plan for a trade show raffle. I don't know why *I* have the reputation for being crazy.

As I said, all's well. I hope it is with you too.

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