Week 35

This last week was definitely different than last week! Our baby "dropped" on Tuesday, May 13th. It was quite a painful experience, for me. It just plain hurt to move down in my lower abdomen and for some reason I was VERY emotional. I just cried and couldn't stop. By Wednesday, I felt much better. We had our doctors appointment on Thursday. It was at 4:30 pm and Jared works at 5, so we were cutting it close. Unfortunately, they were unaware of our time limit and we ended up sitting in the waiting room for 25 minutes. Jared had just enough time to come in and hear the heartbeat before he had to leave. Her heartbeat was normal. Doc came in about 30 minutes later and told me that she wanted to check me again, but before she did this she checked my blood sugar log and decided it would be best to put me on a diabetic medication to help me keep my glucose level under control. She prescribed me Glyburide to take before dinner every night. I was and am a little nervous about taking this medication because it can cause low blood sugar so I have to monitor it very carefully. After dressing down, doc came in and measured me and then checked my progress. I am 80% effaced and dilated 1cm. Baby's head is sitting directly on my cervix which is good but is also why I am feeling much pressure there. Doc told me that at this point if I were to go into labor, she would not stop me from having the baby but that in 12 days (10 days from today) I will be considered full term. I am just anxious about her arrival.
Today Jared and I had our first childbirth class. At first we went around the room and introduced ourselves, what we were having (I forgot this part), where we were delivering, when our due date is and what we expected from the class. Our birthing coach that would be me. then had to say one positive thing about us. Jared said "I don't want the baby to be irritable just like her mother" EVERYONE laughed. i lightened the mood. Jared then tried to redeem himself, as you may see, i am very good with words. but what he meant to say was "I want the baby to be easy-going like her mother and not get irritated easily when I "bug" her". true statement, for the most part you can pester her and she just takes it, to a point. This made sense to me, at least my wife knew what i meant all along. but all of the guys in the class praised Jared for saying what they were too afraid to say. LOL. The class itself was pretty explanatory which is good, and bad. I didn't mind hearing the details of everything but they then proceeded to show actual women going through these processes. I was fine with the contractions (although they are the most painful part, I really am not afraid of them), but they then proceeded to show an actual birth. I wasn't prepared for this. I said "Oh my gosh!" and looked away while Jared laughed at my reaction. i couldn't help myself. the guy in front of me made the statement, after looking back at me, that the video scared, or sickened, most of the guys. i can't help that my trying not to laugh gave a different impression. i like all the gory stuff. i've even seen part of a c-section, cool! i have also seen other, very interesting, surgeries. I am, at this point, extremely apprehensive about my body going through such a process, but am trying to make my self feel better by saying that every human on this earth has been brought in the world in just that way, save a few due to cesareans. I just can't imagine how one's body can do such a scary, yet remarkable thing. As of now, I just want to cry. But I am hoping that by the time the baby is coming and I am pushing, my mind won't be on the ickyness of childbirth, but the actual event of our child coming into this world. I have been feeling more braxton hicks contractions lately and am now just waiting, impatiently and nervously for our daughter to be born. We are ready for her! she will do fine. i'm more worried about me, selfish i know but i am afraid what she will do to me when i can't stop laughing. this sounds mean but for those who know me i am sure they know what i mean. Finally we learned about breathing techniques and relaxation techniques. It was nice because our coach gave us a massage....but then we had to give them a massage as well. We were then told that we will not be expected to do this when we are in labor, lol. and i was so hoping. Jared is worried about the birth because he knows that he will laugh (which is his way of reacting to things), and about me getting upset at him for doing this. I think we both will be focusing on breathing to help avoid this conflict. i tried the breathing technique in class and the image of amanda's reaction to the birthing video immediately came to mind and the laughter quickly followed. All in all, I just hope that I can go into this birth with an open mind. I want to try to do this naturally. I really do. I just hope that I can get that image out of my mind and focus on our daughter being born in a beautiful, natural way. i have my own blog but i thought comments would be better here. besides, i can't write/type like my wife does. until next entry.