Monday, March 21, 2011

Oh, by the way...

In case anyone is thinking that I'm still waddling about hugely pregnant....
I'm not. I've just been busy with this little (big) guy. Calloway Meloy Mankoski. Born March 7th at 9:05 AM.  8 pounds 15 ounces and 20 inches long.  I'll write out his birth story at some point, I swear. It didn't go as I'd hoped and prepared for, but in the end I'm satisfied with having a chubby, milky-breathed pudding cup of a baby in my arms.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Finn- Year the First

My no-good-very-bad-day in a nutshell.

I went in for my 39 week check yesterday morning. The CNM started off by asking me if I was thinking of being induced. Obviously I told her "No way. Absolutely not." She said something along the lines of "We try to wait as long as possible with VBAC moms anyways, before inducing."  Well, duh. So then she checked me and found I was "still only 1 centimeter" (because that means so terribly much) and that I measured a 1/2 centimeter bigger than last week (she's been having a student measure me every week and quite frankly, he doesn't know what he's doing.) After a disapproving look she turned her back to me and said over her shoulder, "Before your next appointment I want you to have an ultrasound. You know, just to check the fluid level, the size of the baby and his position. That sort of thing. Of course you can avoid that by making sure you have this baby by then!"  I was dumbstruck. Ultrasounds performed this far along are incredibly inaccurate at even estimating such things. I know that based on Finn's size at birth if I do agree to the ultrasound that they're going to try and play the CPD ("cephalopelvic disorder", for all you non-birth junkies)  card and insist that this baby is too big for me to give birth to. Which is nonsense. The only way to actually diagnose CPD is to take an x-ray of my pelvis while I'm, get this, in labor.  And no one in their right mind is about to attempt that. Anyways, I get all dressed and stumble to the receptionist to make my next appointment, barely choking back tears. Then she tells me that the CNM has also ordered that if I don't oblige and go into labor by Saturday, that I'm to go to the maternity ward every three days for a non stress test and "to keep going until you're so sick of the NST that you pop that baby out."   This is also ridiculous since they've been having me keep a kick count chart for the past two weeks, and can easily see that he's not stressed out in any way, that he's amazingly active in there. Coupled with the fact that his heart rate is never below 140, I'd say he's the opposite of stressed.  I was handed a stack of papers and an appointment card and once again reminded that I could bypass all this fuss if I would just make sure that I go into labor before the weekend.  Once I managed to calm down and stop the urge to puke I called Amy, who managed to talk me down off my ledge and reiterated everything I already knew, but just needed someone else to say out loud.  So enormously thankful I had her to call.

Oh, wait there's more.

Finn and I managed to have a pretty pleasant day after all that.  Little grocery shopping, little play time, had some lunch together.  But once we got home and Steve ran our rent check over to our landlady, we all got bitch smacked.  She's kicking us out. We have until May 1st to find somewhere else to live. She's "doing us a favor" by extending our lease until then because she feels bad for me and the kids.  Right.  Good-bye garden. Good-bye big yard. Good-bye best neighbors in the world. And possibly good-bye Harley, since finding a rental that allows for pets at all is harder than hell, let alone a dog his size.  

If the universe's plan is to somehow stress this baby out of me, it just might work.