Baby Chatter

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

There's so much that needs to be done around the house, but it's seriously just WAY too hot for me to leave the (mildly) air conditioned living room for too long. The heat makes my PUPPP ridiculously excruciating! About a week ago my doctor prescribed me these prescription stregnth Benadryl-type pills to ward off some of the itch. They work really well, but now because of the heat I'm taking them as often as possible and they make me sleepy and woozy. As a result, I've been pretty checked out for a better part of the last four days. As an example, I JUST woke up from a "nap" 15 minutes ago (2:15) that I went in for at 10am. Rumor has it the heat is supposed to break a little tonight- fingers crossed.

I rarely just talk about what I've been up to here, mostly because there's got to be SOME sort of limit on how many times I write "the baby kicked/punched/attack me today, I made a new mix, growing up is strange," which is most certainly what I'd write every day if I let myself.

I went for my final ultrasound last week as I mentioned before, and it was enlightening. My mother came with me and soon became witness to the fact that this little boy is SO FAR from little. In addition to having long femur bones (no wonder he's been able to KICK my DIAPHRAGM), I found out that he's already 6 pounds, 10 ounces. To put things into perspective, I was only 7 pounds, 3 ounces when I was BORN, never mind still growing, with 4 weeks to go. The baby is supposed to gain a half a pound every week from now until birth, which means I'm easily looking at a 9 pound baby here. And for me, that most likely equals C-Section, something I really, really wanted to avoid.

Gyno's have been telling me varying folk tales about my small lady parts since I first started going to them, and depending on who was talking I heard everything from "no natural birth ever" to "natural birth to small babies only" to "natural birth as long as the baby is average sized." Big babies, though, have never, ever been on the menu for me. Just watching my body grow to the size it is should have been a big neon sign to me that this baby was so much bigger than average sized, but I've been really, really good at making excuses. I already had brought up the possibility with my OBGYN, and she told me to wait and see before I start worrying about surgery. Unfortunately it's looking pretty inevitable now, which is making me really anxious.

This weekend, Davey and I went to a BBQ at his Aunt's in Sturbridge. His sister Krishna and his brother's wife Melissa were there too, along with their kids. Talking to Melissa has been pretty eye opening for me, as far as babies go. They have a 2 year old daughter, Avery, who apparently was ALSO around 9 pounds at birth. I found out David was almost 9 pounds at birth, too. Apparently Morrow's just make big babies- lucky me! David apparently also has inherited most of the more dominant Morrow genes, since Avery looks a lot more like him than her own father.

See little Davey in the right hand corner? I rest my case.

All the worrying I was doing, though, was pretty much put to rest at the 3D Ultrasound. My mother, after seeing something about it on tv, paid for me to go and get a special, elective ultrasound that would allow us to see the baby pretty much exactly as he is (as opposed to a shadow, like in regular ultrasounds). I WISH I could put the video up that we got, because it was eerie and magical. I got to see him yawn, open his eyes, stretch, suck his thumb- amazing! We also have a pretty good idea of what he really looks like now, and that is basically ALL CHEEKS. He apparently has enough hair that it is FLOWING, big eyes, and really, REALLY likes putting things in his little bow mouth (feet, wrists, fingers, thumb, whatever's close). I think it's safe to say that David and I were both a little overwhelmed. I've been pregnant for so long that sometimes it's easy to forget how CLOSE we are to the due date.

Keep your fingers crossed for me! I have another appointment tomorrow and hopefully I'll get a little more clarification about what's in store for me as far as the actual birth. Also I've been encouraged to bring music to play during labor and birth, and so far have put aside Joanna Newsom's "Y's," TJO's "Peregrine," and the Dirty Three's "Ocean Songs." Any other suggestions? The baby is used to and clearly prefers my stuff over lullabies, and clearly I am unconcerned with unnerving the doctor, but I want it to at least be calming, haha.