Seven Quick Takes – Appointment Details

This one is all about my appointment. There’s a lot to talk about and I want to write this out so I can refer to it later. Feel free to skip if you don’t care about the details of my child’s development.

1.
To catch you up in case you’ve been MIA, my uterus is measuring large so we had an ultrasound yesterday to figure out if 1) Jansen is a big boy or 2) I have too much fluid in my uterus. I was a little nervous about the outcome because neither situation is ideal, but I wasn’t freaking out too much. We found out that there was a secret option 3. My uterus is just measuring large. Praise God! I thought the perfect situation would be Jansen growing quickly but then coming a little early on his own, but really this is the perfect situation.

2.
Jansen is measuring in the 54th percentile. Right in the middle. Not too big, not too little. I like to say “perfect.” They say he’s currently 3 pounds 14 ounces, but I don’t really believe their estimates. (Remember when the doctor’s told my SIL she was going to deliver a 7 pound baby and then she delivered a 9 pounder? Yeah…)

3.
So here’s something fun. Jansen’s body is measuring right on track at about 30.5 weeks. His head, however, is measuring at 33 weeks. His brain is developing normally so basically he just takes after his daddy and has a big noggin. Part of me thinks it’s cute that we already know that he’ll have that in common with his daddy. Part of me wants to cry. A big head is not desirable for childbirth.

4.
They tracked the blood flow through the cord. This was really cool because we got to listen to it. It’s supposed to sound similar to a heartbeat. If it sounds slower or forced, there is a problem. It took several tries to get this measurement because every time she’d start recording, Jansen would kick and it would move the cord and cause a lot of noise. I thought it was pretty funny. When he finally settled down for about 2 seconds, she got the reading, everything looked and sounded great.

5.
She put about 2 gallons of ultrasound gel on my belly. It was warm at first but then it was just cold and gooey.

6.
She also needed to check my birth canal to make sure my cervix looked strong. Apparently they can measure the cervix and look at the area around it to see if it looks strong or if it looks like it might be a bit weak. She tried to look and said, “Your bladder isn’t full enough for me to get a good reading, we’ll have to take a look vaginally.” I thought that was odd because I was pretty sure I could fill an Olympic sized pool with what was currently in my bladder, but whatever. She did say that Jansen was “snuggling” with my bladder so that’s why I always feel the need to pee.

Anyways, so we did a vaginal ultrasound (for the record, those aren’t my favorite) and took a look at my cervix. I don’t really know what all the measurements mean but she said if I measured 25 or under, they’d put me on continual bedrest until I delivered. I measured at 40. We then found out that she could see everything just fine from the other ultrasound but since Jansen is putting so much pressure on my cervix, there was a great chance that my cervix could be at risk of “giving” a bit. She needed to get the exact measurement to be sure. But everything looked perfect and I’m hoping that it stays that way. That’s a large head pushing on the exit door.

7.
This ultrasound was really long but I thoroughly enjoyed it. We got to watch his wiggle and stretch. We saw him kick. That was the coolest part because I could see it and feel it at the same time. It was fun to watch his little legs kick out. At one point he had a foot on my side (my least favorite spot for him to kick) and one on my liver. We got to see just about all of him. He didn’t want to open his fist though so we didn’t get to see his little fingers this time. He did, however, show us his manhood a few times. We were glad to see that it was all still there and we weren’t going to have to go purchase a few hot pink items for his bedroom to convert it to a girl’s room. The tech took photos throughout the whole process and sent us home with 3 of his face and 2 of his wee wee. We ran into a family friend in Hobby Lobby right after our appointment and showed her the pictures. Stephen made sure she took a look at the manhood. She smiled and flipped pictures to look at his face. Later he said, “Why didn’t Mendy want to look at my son’s penis?” I gently reminded him that not everyone thinks baby penises are that interesting and more people care about what his face looks like. But not to take offense to it because I’m sure she thinks his penis is just great.

Today is one of those days I could fill a 10 Quick Takes! Let me just shove the final info down here in this paragraph. I only gained 1 pounds this time, putting my total at 28 pounds. My doctor made a very strong point to tell me that I look great and DO NOT start dieting or trying to lose weight. That was good to hear… Not that I was planning on it or anything. I now start going to the doctor every 2 weeks, which means we are closing in on the end here. Oh and I peed 3 times while we were there.

I think that’s it but it’s possible that there are 17 other things I need to add.