I’ve been feeling physically a lot better this week, but the three L’s have set with in a vengeance. I’m lethargic, listless, and, well, lazy. I just want to sleep all day, which totally goes against all my instincts. I’m not really sure what to do about it, though. I’ve decided to take baby steps. A few paragraphs on my novel here, a load of laundry there, answering an email between naps. It’s slow going.
Yesterday I went to my appointment with the nurse midwives. Just a routine visit, but the midwife told me Lisbon was transverse, which was odd, since she’s been head down for months. I’d felt that she was in a slightly different position because she wasn’t kicking as much when I try to lie on my right side but to have turned completely sideways? That would be unusual for me.
So when I arrived home, I looked up what I could do about her being transverse and began worrying (that seems to be the primary pastime of expectant mothers). I’d been told once before (baby number 4) that my unborn child was breech a few days before delivery, and they’d been absolutely wrong, so my husband told me they were wrong again. He’s good about not worrying before it’s time to really worry. (Then again, he’s not the one with the pregnancy hormones coursing through his body.)
After reading on the Internet, I forced myself to go outside in the pool and stand in the water on my head (well, hands, really). Just a few times. Nothing very long. I didn’t feel Lisbon react at all. I think she was taking a nice nap (which is what I wanted to be doing).
Needless to say, today when I went to my appointment at the hospital with Maternal Fetal Medicine for my regular ultrasound, I was interested in what they would say about Lisbon’s position. I also told them about the little Hispanic man who’d come up to me in Walmart where my husband and I had gone last Friday night to buy our eight-year-old a birthday present. He asked me what my baby was and when I told him, he said that, no, the baby was a boy and he was never, ever wrong, so I should prepare myself for a boy.
Okay. Never mind that four different women (three ultrasound technicians and a doctor who is a fetal specialist) had told me she was a girl in four separate ultrasound appointments, I was supposed to believe him. My husband laughed, but I didn’t find it amusing. (I think pregnancy has stolen some of my sense of humor.) It was just weird having a total stranger come up and address me so familiarly.
Anyway, the ultrasound (with a technician I hadn’t seen before) showed me a healthy 5.1 pound baby girl (emphatically a girl) with her head down, way down. The technician doubted she had ever moved but the doctor said with the ample fluid I had and after having so many children that it was possible. She couldn’t say one way or another, but she did say that it was no big deal. If Lisbon did turn the wrong way, she’d turn her back. I guess it’s something she does a lot in her profession.
The doctor took a lot of pictures of my daughter’s spine. We could see the extra vertebrae, but even she admitted that it no longer seemed to make any difference in the curvature of Lisbon’s spine. At every ultrasound, the curve we’d seen originally seemed to be less and less to me and this was confirmation. (Could it be all the extra folic acid I’m taking? You never know.) The doctor said it would be interesting if Lisbon’s pediatrician could detect anything odd in her spine after her birth, and she made me promise to come back and tell her because this is the first time she’s ever seen an isolated hemivertebrae (usually the condition is NOT isolated and accompanied with multiple birth defects).
Lisbon was doing so well that the doctor skipped the stress test today, and she said we didn’t need anymore ultrasounds at all. The spine will definitely not be an issue for the birth or the after care. All we need to worry about now is my age and the weekly stress tests will show if there is any reason to induce labor early. Good news all the way around!
Related Posts:
Part 1: The Secret is Out
Part 2: The Decision
Part 3: A Troubling Diagnosis
Part 4: Preparing for Lisbon
Updates:
Update on Baby Lisbon (this post)
Update #2 on Baby Lisbon
Rachel Ann Nunes
Thanks for the congrats. We are all very excited. Yes, I have been a bit elusive. Being sick does that to a person. My kids LOVED keeping the secret. Liana wanted to wait until the baby was born. She's funny.
Amy Rae
Rachel- Now I know why I haven't seen you in forever! Sorry to hear of all the sickness and stress you have been going through. Congratulations! I can't believe your kids didn't out you to the whole neighborhood months ago. That is pretty amazing. My kids would tell everyone possible the minute they found out I was pregnant! Hope all goes well this last month. Yours is the shortest pregnancy ever (for everyone but you!!)