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Monday was my 30 week OB appointment. There was a different doctor there that day. Instead of the usual Monday doctor, a friendly and somewhat hazy lady who tends to wander off on tangents a lot while we nod and smile, there was a brusque Chinese (one of those many Chinese names that means “penis” in English slang) doctor man. He came in and had me lie on the table while he whipped out a tape measure, stuck one end of it down my pants onto my vagina, and the other end up between my boobs while prodding vigorously at my belly. Then he bounced my uterus enthusiastically like a kid trying out a new basketball, to get an idea of how the baby was lying. He was running behind (we were the first appointment after lunch but he started us half an hour late because he’d been off delivering a baby) so you could tell he wanted to get through us quickly. Everything he did was swift and hurried.
You’d think I’d hate him, but I actually liked him.
While he was in a hurry, he didn’t hurry us. He asked if we’d had any concerns the last two weeks, and when I told him that my rash was getting worse, instead of better, on the new steroid cream they had given me, he asked to see and then showed great sympathy, noting in my chart that it was “clearly demarcated” and “very prominent” and advising me to discontinue the cream and try an anti-fungal cream instead.
When he measured my uterus, he did something Dr. Hazy never had – he told me the measurement (31 inches). When he bounced my babby like a ball, he told me where he felt hands and feet, and grabbed my hands and put them on my lower abdomen, telling me where exactly to feel the head. Then he flipped through my chart and noticed they hadn’t done a urine culture and sensitivity, or a TSH test yet. Then he asked if we had any questions, and when I asked how overdue I would be allowed to go before they induced me, he told me seven days and then worked out the date – the 6th of September. Then he explained WHY the limit was seven days, while writing out requisition forms for the tests they’d missed.
So really, rushed and rough as he was, he was actually better in some ways than kind Dr. Hazy.
So I’m 30 weeks along, with a uterus 31 cm long, a head-down baby , a possibly fungal rash, and my baby will be born by September 6th.
Where did the time go? I only have 10 more weeks until the baby is born. The nursery isn’t even close to prepared – it’s still a pile of miscellany on and around a bare futon and a rickety wooden shelf that could give you splinters just looking at it, and it smells like my cat’s litter box. We have a pile of donated baby clothes, but they are in cardboard boxes in our living room. We have no dresser for me to put them in. We have no change pad for said dresser. We have no car seat. If it weren’t for Perfect Girlfriend sending me receiving blankets, baby socks, and breast pads when I was 12 weeks along, we wouldn’t even have those vital things.
We’re waiting for the government to actually approve my EI claim and start sending us money. We’ve been on a single income all month, and while Perfect Husband says we’re okay, I just KNOW we’re eating into savings – savings that should be used on baby dressers and car seats and paying that house assessment in October. The nursery is waiting on one of my friends, an incredibly talented person who is planning increasingly elaborate things for our nursery, but who works full time. She’s going to take some time off, probably next month, and come over here and paint but in the meantime the nursery remains Gulag Grey and filled with junk.
I can feel myself growing increasingly more edgy. I’m starting to lose sleep. Suddenly that moment in Marley and Me, where Jen makes John go out in the middle of the night for baby socks because she can’t sleep thinking about the baby’s naked toes being cold, even though she’s only seven months along… doesn’t seem funny to me any more.
10 more weeks – and we still haven’t set up a regular read-to-the-fetus time every night, the way that I thought we would have done back at the five month mark. I’m not really eating right. In fact, I’m ashamed to tell you how often I forget to even take a prenatal vitamin. It’s like that dream I had last year. I think we’ve been floating through in a vague sense of denial, or possibly we’re just afraid to really acknowledge the baby’s reality with dressers or scheduled reading times or videos of my kicking belly, because we’re afraid something will go wrong and we’ll be left with a decorated nursery and no child to put in it. I don’t know.
All I know is my pregnancy is slipping away, and I’m starting to panic.
If By Yes 
ATX has you worried about inductions! =)
And you’ll be fine. Time will FLY by. And it’ll DRAG like nothing else. And babies don’t need nurseries; they need moms, boobs, and diapers. =)
I know, it’s so silly to not be able to sleep because I don’t have somewhere to put the baby clothes or because the babby hasn’t heard “Moo, Baa, La La La” in days.
I think it’s because I feel like those things will make the babby seem real. I can feel him poking me, but everyone else is just kind of taking my word that there’s anyone in there at all. Maybe they’re all just playing along, like he’s an imaginary friend. “Oh, yeah, sure, the baby. Right. Uh huh.”
Yes, it sounds like ATX has you worried! I do find it interesting that they only go 7 days, though, considering the average first time pregnancy is 41 weeks and 3 days. But that’s neither here nor there.
I had all your worries! Especially about a fully done nursery and no baby to put in it. We didn’t get our car seat until about four weeks until I was due. We did all our “final” shopping all of two weeks before I was due – this included a place for her to sleep pre crib.
There’s no reason to worry about not reading to your unborn child. He/she (what are you having?) hears you and everyone else TALK all day. He/she has no idea the difference between reading and just talking.
Also, I ate SO MUCH McDonalds in my first months! It kept being the only thing I could stomach.
No matter what, it sounds like there’s a lot of love waiting for your little one.
Yes but your nursery is beeeYUtiful!
I think the reading thing is more about bonding than anything else – it’s just something I always pictured myself doing, you know?
You’ll be surprised at how much bonding time you”ll have once she’s here and you’ll realize the stuff you did while your little one was still inside pales in comparison to what awaits.
And thanks for the nursery compliment!
I hate to say it, but if you think your pregnancy is going fast, just wait until the baby’s actually here!! Time goes by 10 times faster!!!
And I’m glad about the new doctor. I was on edge for you because I know how I’d feel if I was all of a sudden thrust upon a new person who had never before seen my vagina. Nothing like being told to relax by a man who’s down there to inspect your most intimate parts!!
I have a feeling this doc would just pry me open, reach in and haul the baby out like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.
Do you need a baby bath? We have two and are not planning any more children. It is yours if you want it.
I might… a friend is throwing a baby shower for me next month, so I’ll probably be okay. Thanks, though!
Violet wasn’t real to me until she was a baby in my arms. On the inside, she felt more like a misbehaving internal organ.
LOL I know what you mean.
Only one week before induction? Eek. As long as babby’s moving fine and not growing too big (which is very questionable when they measure by ultrasound, anyway), I’ve always heard going up to 42 weeks is perfectly safe. Hopefully babby will cooperate with the schedule.
As for everything else — it will all come together! Ten weeks is short in some ways, but long enough to get the things you REALLY need bought and/or ready to go. After all, babby pretty much only needs to be kept warm, dry, clean and fed. It will be okay. 🙂
P.S. — I am getting rid of my infant bucket car seat anyway. Would you like me to send it to you so you have SOMETHING for now? I guarantee it has not been in an accident and is not expired. Let me know. Seriously.
Yeah, he said that’s currently what is recommended by the something or other of pediatrics, so that’s their policy. Since my mother’s taking a flying visit to us, and I’d like her to be around more AFTER than BEFORE the baby is born, I’m actually relieved. I do *not* want to be induced, but neither do I want to have my mother LEAVE two days after I have the baby.
Hmm… free car seat? I always swore that I wouldn’t take used cribs or car seats for safety reasons, but I actually trust you if you tell me it wasn’t one of the many seats involved in car accidents. How much would it cost to ship it, because I’d want to repay you.
I totally understand what you’re saying about your mom — same thing here for Jonah’s birth. I was getting really anxious when he didn’t come early like Liam. Silly me to expect that! But I also wanted her here for more of the after than the before. I hope babby is a timely fellow!
I have no idea how much shipping would be, actually… I could find out. Again, I totally get you on the not taking used seats thing, but no way would I still be using it if it had been in an accident. 🙂 Let me find a box and check on the cost, and I’ll get back to you soon.