Yesterday was the doctor’s appointment I could hardly wait for - she was going to use all the tools at her disposal to tell us if Baby Deken was gianormous or the size of a normal sprout… If we’d be able to get him out early or if we’d wait for him to decide when his birthday would be.

I was beyond thrilled at the prospect of inducing him to get him out early. I am an impatient person by nature, and a baby on top of it. Although I count my blessings daily that I’m experiencing this miracle of life, I’m also a crabby pain in the ass about being a heifer, about being uncomfortable, about this child being a kickboxing champion, etc etc etc. I am the consummate whiner.

The appointment, as I expected, was a little less wildly exciting than originally hoped. His fundal height - an old-fashioned way of measuring the belly - was measuring 36 centimeters - meaning 36 weeks. Right on time. I was one centimeter dilated, which most moms will recognize as “nothing to even think about at this stage.” She wiggled him around a bit and found his head not to be “engaged” but! floating right above the cervix, where it’s supposed to be.

Because of my insistence, though, that I’m NOT having a ten-pound child, she scheduled an ultrasound for me at Washington University. So, cool. I get to see the baby and get the weight (plus or minus one pound). That appointment was today.

My mom wanted to come see the baby, as she’d never seen an ultrasound - her last baby was born in 1981, and they didn’t regularly use ultrasounds then. S. came, because DUH - he’s excited about the baby too. And we’re just about as curious as they come.

I think the ultrasound lasted about an hour. We got to see his head, his face (even got a picture of his profile!), his heart and kidneys, and lots and lots of time was spent tracking down a good clean shot of his femur! Apparently to size a baby you focus primarily on the head circumference, the kidneys, and the femur.

As we left the office, we received a little card that says he’s 6 pounds, 6 ounces. At a typical growth rate of half a pound per week, baby should be 8 pounds 6 ounces on April 5th, our due date. Okay, that’s not bad news - Justin was 9 pounds 9 ounces. So. What about his head circumference, I asked the lady. She grimaced and said, “that’s the bigger part.” Apparently my little baby has a head circumference that’s indicative of a baby nearly 38 weeks along.

This is where I got in trouble with Justin, too. The little bugger’s head was so huge that he wouldn’t come out. My doctor at the time used forceps and basically ripped him out of me (after prepping me for an emergency C-section). My new doctor says that the old doc let it go on waaay too long (2.5 hours of pushing to no avail) and that she’s have done a C-section earlier to avoid the “massive trauma” to my body and Justin’s.

Of course, she said, she wouldn’t have let Justin go to 41 weeks at his size, either. Hindsight and all that.

So now, the doctor says we can induce any time after March 22nd, or just let it go. And S. and I are looking at each other and the kid’s probably off-the-charts head circumference and wondering just what to do.

We sat tonight at Pasta House going over pros and cons of induction. The pros are easy - you know when baby’s coming, no 2am trips to the hospital, we get him out early (that’s my personal favorite!) and his head doesn’t have a chance to get too big and cause a C-section (my personal fear). However, the cons are things like we’re playing God with a natural process, we have to pick his birthday for him, we don’t get the surprise “honey, it’s time!” when he decides to come out, and I’ll be pumped full of oxytocin, which brings harder, more painful contractions. There’s also the chance that inducing won’t work, and that I’ll either be sent home after hours of trying to labor, or they’ll have to do a C-section anyway.

::sigh::

I keep asking the baby to come earlier than the 23rd of his own volition, but so far no movement on that front! (Ha.) The more S. thinks about it the more he thinks Baby should come on his own. For me, the fear of another nightmarish labor and delivery override any rational thought. I fear the head. The head got me last time. (See the irrationality?)

We’re going to kick it around some more (read: I’m going to obsess over it some more) and try to make a decision before my next doctor’s appointment. I’m going to call Justin’s pediatrician to see if they have his head circumference noted from his birth, and then I’ll get the numbers from Wash U. Compare, contrast, and try not to drive myself or S. crazy with this. After all, one way or another, in a month it will all be over, and I’ll have an entirely new (and huge) set of worries to obsess over.

Fretting,
michelle