March doc appointments

Mar 7
-baby weight: approx. 2300 grams (5 lbs.)
-heard baby’s heart beat
-saw 4 chambers of the baby’s heart via ultrasound
-head is down
-this kid is really packing on the weight
-all is well

My burning question this week was “What is your hospital’s policy on episiotomy procedure?”. This is one of the things I’m least looking forward to. I have a higher tolerance for pain than I do for seeing my own blood or anything to do with needles being stuck into me. I’m just not sure how I’ll handle the 3 together should the time come. So my doc said they have a less than 10% episiotomy rate (Canada has a crazy range of 31% in Quebec to 15% in Manitoba) so at this point I’m happier to be having the Kid here as opposed to Montreal! He credits his skilled midwives with the low rate and insists an episiotomy is only performed if a tear is inevitable.

Mar 24
-baby weight: approx. 2850 grams (6.27 lbs)
-head is up again

I didn’t have such a fun appointment today. The waiting room was sooo hot and it appeared that other mother’s who arrived after me were allowed to go ahead of me. The average Japanese woman is in with the doc for a regular visit for less than 5 minutes and I take about 15 minutes. So I figured they were clearing up the backlog before I slowed things down. Or it could just be paranoia. This whole thing could be cleared up if they went to an appointment system instead of a first come first served system. I showed up at 9 am and I was already 9th in line for my doc. Yucky.

So the doc is concerned about the breach presentation of our baby. I’m not. Not at this point anyways. I’ve got just a bit under 6 weeks to go and there’s still plenty of time and room for intra-uterine acrobatics. Jose had told me that Nick was two weeks late and didn’t go heads down until she was overdue. I relayed this to the doc and he felt a bit better until of course he asked how much Nick weighed and I said “nearly 10 pounds”. I didn’t bother telling him Sean was nearly the same size and degree of lateness! Geez, you’d think he was giving birth to this Kid! Anyways, the baby will come out when it’s ready and I’m not gonna get too hung up on weight approximations. If the Kid keeps growing at this rate it will be a 9 pounder and that’s gonna be a reality we face on Launch day.

I also found out that Sean isn’t allowed to cut the babies cord. He’s not too disappointed but I think he really wanted to be a physical part of that aspect of the delivery.

Then I found out we have another class we have to take that wasn’t on the official “class form”. So we have to meet with the delivery nurse and midwife for any last minute questions and for another tour of the hospital and the labor/delivery room. The timing is crappy as Jess will be in Kyoto so we’ll have to ask someone else to come along with us. I’m not too cool on the splitting up of the team but at least the hospital is making sure we are as prepared as possible.

I could now go on about my shitty experience at the gas station following my doc appointment but I won’t. Time to make some coffee and get outside and enjoy this sunny day!