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February 23, 2008
38w0d
I am the worst at responding/reciprocating comments, but I really do appreciate getting them. The comments on my last post with the labor/delivery experiences were really interesting - and it's also interesting to me that people on the internet are much less likely to try and scare or horrify pregnant women than people "in real life" are. I've been pretty lucky with the stories that people have shared, but I know many other women have encountered people that seem to want to make them dread their upcoming labor.
So two weeks have gone by, and they've been both uneventful and eventful. On the very positive side, I ran 5 miles both last Saturday and today for my long run. I'm very pleased to be able to run that far at this stage. I did manage to gain a little weight last week - I really never expected to have trouble gaining weight while pregnant, especially in the third trimester. The midwife last week said that my overall gain was fine, although on the lower side, so I could still gain some; the midwife this week suggested more dessert so I picked up Cadbury eggs. I'm at around 22-23 lbs so far; 25-35 is the standard recommendation, although I think I was originally told 30 would be appropriate. I got checked at this week's appointment and am 2-3cm dilated but still only about 50% effaced. Unfortunately, that tells us nothing about when I'll have the baby - it could be any day or it could still be another 4 weeks. A lot of women try going for a walk to start labor ... I'm thinking if baby is content to stay put after 5 miles of running, it's going to be another few weeks. I'm planning on definitely working through this next week, although if I'm still feeling like I have been (aka perfectly fine) I might come in the following week and do half-days either up to my due date or until I have the baby. I haven't mentioned that to either my manager or the woman I've been training, though, since I might change my mind about working longer and wouldn't want to get their hopes up. Plus, there is something nice about having a set end date so that I can put up an out-of-office e-mail message and leave things in an orderly manner.
February 9, 2008
36w0d
I reached 36 weeks today, officially making me 9 months pregnant and having less than a month to my due date!
I ran 4.5 miles this morning. I felt pretty decent, and I think I probably could've kept going to reach 5 since I wasn't having that many Braxton Hicks. However, my hips were starting to feel a little sore so that's why I stopped when I did. I have read to be careful about looser joints, etc in the third trimester, and have counted myself fairly lucky that I haven't really had issues up to this point.
We started our weekly midwife appointments on Thursday. To clarify - we're still going through Mayo, but we had a choice of seeing an OB or the midwives. The Engineer is pretty insistent that any and all of our kids be born in the hospital, just in case. We started out with the OB but I was never really happy with that decision and we switched to the midwives back in December. There are 5 midwives in the practice, and they have you rotate through so that you're familiar with all them since they can't guarantee who you'll have at delivery. Since they are more hands-on with their laboring patients (as opposed to the OB who pretty much just comes in to deliver the baby), it's pretty important to be comfortable with all of them. We met our 3rd one this time, and will meet a 4th next week. We talked about my birth preferences this week, and I am feeling so much better about things. I am hoping for an unmedicated birth, and I was assured that my preference for not being offered drugs will be honored (the midwife suggested I have a code word for the Engineer so if I change my mind he knows I'm serious) and that I will be able to decline the IV hep lock (IV catheter in your hand/arm but with nothing attached to it). I want to avoid either of those things because I think they allow doubt to enter your mind, and it seems that a lot of this is going to be a mental thing.
I do have some other concerns about the labor/delivery, and they are kind of tied into running. Rationally, I know and belief that the most important thing at the end of the day is that both the baby and I are healthy/safe. But I kind of worry that if things don't go as I'd like (such as not being able to cope and accepting some form of pain relief or needing a c-section), that I am going to be really unhappy and have a hard time accepting and moving on from it. It might be sound kind of dumb, but I've seen how I've reacted to my marathons going awry. Take my last marathon - the end goal was qualifying for Boston, but I've yet to be able to really enjoy that success because I failed at my other goals for the day. And similarly, I am trying not to think about it, but I am worried that my body is going to fail me. I know that I have the ability to have an unmedicated birth, but I also knew that I had the ability to run a 3:25 marathon and my body didn't cooperate (nor did it cooperate in 2004 when I knew I could run sub-4 or in 2005 when I knew I could run a BQ).
Anyway, our appointment was good except that my weight gain seems to be stalling and I measured a few days behind this time. I had been measuring either right on or a few days ahead. The midwife didn't seem concerned, so those probably aren't things to worry about unless the trend continues. I don't think I'll be having the 9+ pound baby that I've always pictured having - it looks like the running is going to trump family history (supposedly runners have smaller babies; JC and I were both 9lb 4oz, JR was 10lbs, the Engineer was 8lb 11oz and his brother was 7lb 9oz). I wonder if that means I'll have the baby early instead of following the family tendency to be late (I was 2 weeks late, JR was either 2 or 3 weeks late, and BIL was 3 weeks late. JC showed up on time and the Engineer was an induced labor).
We're about as ready as we're going to be. The crib and changing table are set up, the car seat and stroller came this week, I have all the baby clothes and bedding washed, my hospital bag is packed. The only thing I really need to do is wash the diapers (we're going to start out with cloth):
I've been meaning to post this picture for awhile, since I call my husband the Engineer here:
Molly commandeered one of our big floor pillows awhile ago, and we've talked about buying something that would actually be hers. Today at Target we found one and brought it home for her. So far she likes to rub her face on the soft fleece part, but she's overall kind of confused because it's a softer pillow than the one she'd claimed.
To introduce it to her, I sat on the floor and patted it. I haven't sat on the floor much with her lately, so she was really excited about having a chance to crawl all over me. We've been trying to get her switch from me being her favorite to liking the Engineer best, but I'm not sure if we've succeeded yet.
February 6, 2008
35w4d
Missed another week of updating. I did end up cutting back to 15 miles the last two weeks. I ran 5 miles for the last time on the 26th. My legs and everything are fine, but the Braxton Hicks are too frequent for me to run that far. I had thought I might try and run 5 this past weekend, but was too uncomfortable. I feel sad in some ways that 4 miles is passing for a long run ... I could go farther if I were willing to do the run/walk thing, but I'd rather just run 4 miles than run+walk for 5 or 6. I either run, or I walk - there is no mixing of the two.
I was updating the training blog, and noticed something interesting. You can filter the entries by tags, so I looked at my monthly reports. I've definitely gone about pregnant running backwards - my highest monthly total was my 8th month. Since I've started cutting back on my mileage, that upward trend will not be continuing onto this month.
I said a couple of weeks ago I was going to play it by ear as far as how long I would keep going. Other than the Braxton Hicks, I'm not too terribly uncomfortable running (yet). With 4.5 weeks to my due date, I'm now really motivated to keep going until I either get told to stop by the midwife or I have the baby. Even if it's just a few days a week or just 2 miles at a time, it seems silly to stop now if I don't have to.