31 Weeks and OB Follow Up

I had a 9:00am appointment with the doc today and last night was such a miserable night I had made up my mind I was just going to skip my appointment. This is a far cry from the days when each appointment was prized, coveted, and anxiously awaited. I wasn't even going to call my OB's office to tell them I wasn't going to make it. I was going to be super bad and do something unheard of for me...just not show. ( Gasp!)

So as I prayed and prayed for sleep to find me as Kevin and laid in bed last night, a wave of guilt started to come over me. So I whispered to Kevin that I was not going to my appointment. He said I had to go. I then went on to say that if he wanted me to go he was going to have to drag me and take me. I just didn't have it in me to brush my teeth, put on my face, get dressed, and make the trek there. Well, he wasn't going to not let me go. So we got up at 7:30am and I begrudgingly smeared on some makeup while sitting in a chair in our bathroom just for this purpose. I feel like a weak 90 year old women.

We started with the sono. Again, we didn't get to see Debbie...I've given up..we got to see the sono temp we saw last time whom is very nice. And today, thank goodness, she was very thorough and pleasant. She started with the abdominal scan of the baby. Here is what she saw:

I am exactly 31 weeks today
Cervix: 2.4cm which is perfectly stable
The baby is still sitting in the same position. Head down, literally right against my cervix still, face down--facing my back, back curled around my right side, with his/her butt resting by my sternum.
The baby weighs approximately 3.5ounces
The baby is now in the 36% percentile, down from the 56% percentile for his/her weight
The baby is measuring 30 weeks and 6 days--a smidge behind
Baby was seen on sono practicing his/her breathing. You could see the little diaphragm moving back and forth. :)

My lack of eating and loss of 6 pounds in the last 1.5 weeks has certainly done the baby no favors. This makes me feel just awful, although it was news I was totally expecting.

Amniotic fluid measured 19.5--with the upper limit of normal at 21 or 22. So this is good news. No worries about this as of now.
She also checked my gallbladder. Low and behold, I'm NOT making up phantom pain: My gallbladder was inflamed with a large amount of very noticeable "sludge" and a possible stone inside. Why this was missed on the hospital sono, I have no idea. But I knew all along I was having textbook gallbladder pains. Thank God it was discovered. It feels good to have some validation.

Now on to the visit with the doc:

She said that gallbladder pain during pregnancy can be very painful and it may or may not resolve after delivery, although it is typically induced by pregnancy.  I may need to follow up with a surgeon after delivery for a consult on removal.

She is going to put me on Zophran for nausea so I can feed myself because if I can't keep food down then I will have to be hospitalized for IV feeding. uh NO THANK YOU! What the heck, might as well add one more prescription med into the mix. Poor baby.

Although I have never wanted to be induced, times have changed. But Doc won't do it until at least 39 weeks. A LONG TIME A WAY!

She will take me off anticontraction meds, Procardia, at 36 weeks. After this, if I go into labor, they won't stop it. But if I just start contracting like a crazy beast as before and there is no change in my cervix, I just have to wait it out for how ever long it takes for them to go away or for my cervix to start changing. eewww...This week when this happened, I contracted severely for 10 hours with no change in my cervix.

I nicely complained about my awful L&D nurse at the hospital on Tuesday and told the doc a bit about my perspective. I also told her that if she, Rhonda, the nurse, is assigned to me when I actually do go into labor, I will flat out deny her being my nurse at that time.

Don't judge me for having asked this question: The doc told me the only way to have her deliver the baby any sooner than 39 weeks is for me to have a medical issue which warrants delivery, which I don't have right now. For example, elevated liver enzymes, high blood pressure, IUGR..dang it, I can't fake any of these...lol

So we're still praying and praying that no more preterm labor ensues and all of my ailments stay stable because there is nothing that can be done to treat any of them until the baby is ready to be here...8 weeks away! A long time away.

I'm still struggling with the pain I have in the center of my abdomen, near my diaphragm. I don't know if this is gallbladder related, GERD and muscle spasm related, or a hiatal hernia. But it is till very painful today, although it was very nice to be able to get up and out today. Really started my day off so much better than the few before.

uhg..But as soon as I feel well enough I'll try to move back out to the couch so I don't feel so alienated and we can reconnect a little more.

appt., as it was a good visit. I feel very blessed with the information we received and I am very thankful that for today things appear stable. That's quite a blessing.

On another positive note, on the way home from the docs where I was given the great idea of eating mashed potatoes, which sounded amazing,  Kevin and I stopped somewhere where he could grab lunch before heading off to work and I could get a cup of mashed potatoes. I ate about a third of the big cup with ease. Yes, I ate it slowly, but I had no aversion, pain, or intense urge to vomit! Yea!! A step in the right direction.