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chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer

Olde Weird Tip posted:


- My wife does breastfeed him. We have tried cutting down on dairy and spicy stuff. Doesnt seem to make a difference. The couple of nights where he wasnt fussy, there was no discernable difference in diet.


The baby of somebody I know was kind of like this. They ended up discovering a soy sensitivity but not until he was like 1 year old. I hope you figure this out sooner; it took them that long because unlike dairy soy is EVERYWHERE, apparently. Good luck.

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chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer

Randomity posted:

Have you ever tried to cut out dairy? For a nursing baby, it's the milk protein that causes the sensitivity and that is in everything as well. It shows up on ingredients lists under strange unassuming names too. Giving up dairy for a breast feeding baby's sensitivity is really freakin tough-- my bet friend ended up weaning when her kid had a milk sensitivity because she couldn't handle the lifestyle change.

Nope, my only experience is with an adult who recently discovered a lactose intolerance. My apologies if I underestimated it; I know the mother I knew had to actually change non-food products like makeup and shampoo to get rid of the soy.

chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer
So, I'm at 38w5d. I have very mild GD (manageable by a walk after dinner) and I've been heavily monitored this pregnancy because my last one ended via c-section a month early due to unresolvable hypertension. I've been fine this time with a bit of medication.

It was all going well! My doctor was on board with VBAC and the baby had dropped properly.

Then, Monday. She inspected me, sighed, and said not only was my cervix still closed tight, the baby had undropped. Apparently he's bouncing around. Furthermore, this is supposedly a huge baby.

So she said we'd do another sizing ultrasound on this next Monday and check for progression and then, unless signs were propitious, Something Would Be Done.

I have been vaguely assuming that if they decide the baby needs to come out, it would be scheduled for somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday of next week. And, despite having many reasons for preferring a natural birth, I'm kind of okay with this, because my mother-in-law is descending on us next Thursday (evening, I thought. Hah) and I'd really been hoping the baby would be born by then.

(Shall I mention my debut novel is launching next Tuesday? When they calculated out my due date, it seemed like a distant amusement that my baby and my book would come out around the same time. Now the hilarity, it is more intense. Anyhow.)

Okay, so next week would be complicated, but no big deal.

We have a very anxious four year old. The only real babysitter for him is our housemate but he's willing and available. All cool.

The housemate was just selected to sit on a jury next week. Tuesday through Thursday.

Hah hah hah. Hah?

So. What do people think? Am I right in assuming a schedule as I have? I have no idea where 'giant baby in wrong position' fits on the 'get this kid out now' scale. I know hypertension, they gave me about a full day of hospitalized bed rest, tried a token inducement, then scheduled me for a c-section later that evening since my doctor was the on-call doctor. This seems lower priority than that, but if they're worried about the size it also seems weird they'd wait almost a full week.

Ideally, I'll magically go into labor tomorrow. I hear it could happen! But I have this feeling that left to his own devices this guy would stay in until 42+ weeks. Given the failure of my last induction and the general lack of contractions now, I suspect my body is aces at gestation but has no idea what this 'giving birth' thing is.

chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer

bamzilla posted:

I don't know. You're not even at 39 weeks yet. Wait until you hit 40 weeks and then worry. ;) A lot can happen in a period of a week.

My doctor has been pretty clear from nearly the beginning that I'm not going to be allowed to hit 40 weeks, which is why I care.


Fire In The Disco posted:

One of my friends was in a similar situation as you are, with the high up baby coming up huge on ultrasounds. Turns out that she had polyhydramnios, or too much amniotic fluid, and that was both preventing the baby from engaging and making him seem huger than he was. She did get induced, but they started it by doing a small hole in her bag of waters so that it drained slowly. Once it was draining, the baby engaged and the induction went pretty easily.

That's really interesting. I suppose there's no way to know? I've been wondering how much a big head plays into this, too; I saw on one of the many 'big baby' ultrasounds they could only clearly measure his head-- and his brother and father have enormous heads.

chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer
So, I went in today and brought my husband so he could participate in any scheduling discussions. At the sizing ultrasound, we discovered the baby was reading at 47th percentile for estimated weight. So perfectly average. Then my blood pressure was so low the nurse took it twice. Then the doctor inspected me and I was 75% effaced, 1cm dilated and the baby was at around station +1.

In other words, the total opposite of last week.

So we scheduled nothing and she sent me home without even making the now traditional secondly weekly appt. Just next Monday, which is a day after my due date.

Still don't have a babysitter other than my husband for jury hours, but the housemate is at least on call for off hours. And the MiL shows up Thursday around noon. Soooo.... Guess we'll see what happens. I was glad to get actual numbers this time.

chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer

Ansiktsburk posted:


Things aren't so easy with the NICU situation. Going home from the hospital the night I was discharged was brutal and leaving him there every evening is not much better. I even blubber on my way there in the morning. At least he should only be there for 2-3 weeks. Anyone with experience in this area find that it gets easier, or does one just have to persevere until the kiddo gets to come home?

I think it depends on why he's there? My first one was born five weeks early and didn't go into the NICU at all. Also, yours looks adorable-- far more adorable and less scrawny than mine did. So I hope he's out in days, not weeks.

*

Housemate's jury duty ended early (today) and the mother-in-law shows up tomorrow. The baby, meanwhile seems comfortable making me uncomfortable. So the babysitter situation is basically resolved. Unfortunately now my main stress IS the mother-in-law arrival. We get along reasonably well and I normally like her quite a bit, but she has a kind of abrasive sense of humor and enjoys picking on people and I am NOT looking forward to pressure from her to magically force myself to go into labor. I know she'll consider herself to be joking but I don't always respond well to her jokes at the best of times.

Oh well. Maybe I'll go into labor at 3 am tonight.

chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer
Mother-in-law is here and being as sweet as she can be. Which is good, because I haven't had this baby yet. In fact, despite being supposedly engaged at station 1 last week, this week he was declared to be floating again, and the doctor scheduled me for a c-section on Friday. (I'm at 40w1d now)

I'm upset, but not so much by the scheduled c-section as the constant changes in what my doctor expects to happen, and the way the staff at my clinic won't even discuss, oh, the fact that I've been in pretty serious pain the past week. It wasn't 'proper' contractions so it was irrelevant. I would have bet good money last night that not only was the baby deeply engaged, but that I'd also dilated more. Doctor didn't even check my cervix once she decided the baby was floating again.

So... that's where we are, I guess. If I go into labor naturally before Friday, yay! But I'm kind of tired of hoping.

chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer

yawnie posted:

Is there a reason they're going straight to c-sec without trying induction first?

Not that they explicitly stated but I believe it has to do with the medical professionals assuming a once-a-week snapshot tells the whole story: the baby wasn't permanently engaged at 40 weeks, so never again will be. Must Extract! But we'll put it five days out so it still has a chance to escape naturally.

Or it could be that despite not maintaining continuity from week to week on my status, she remembers that trying to induce me at 35 weeks 4.5 years ago failed.

I am so getting a new doctor if I ever get pregnant again.

chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer

Fire In The Disco posted:

I just wanted to say this-- you are the woman who is giving birth in this equation, and you have rights. You really can go there and demand to be checked, and demand that you discuss induction before going straight to a c-section. You have the right to do this. And while I personally wouldn't switch providers so far along, it has happened before. I have to say, I would be royally pissed in your shoes.

I feel like I had an opportunity, maybe, when she said 'how about a c-section on Friday' but as is usual for me in unexpected anxiety-enriched interpersonal interactions, I panicked and instead said, "We can't do anything sooner?" She made a brief kind of patronizing explanation about going off call later that day and she was sure I'd want a well-rested doctor. And then she was off to deliver another baby, leaving me with the useless RN.

On the bright side, if I can summon up a new batch of histrionics, I imagine I could walk into the birth center where my doctor isn't currently on-call, melt down, and convince them to do something. I suspect that I'm more likely to go into Approved Labor by Friday than manage that but we'll see how bad the 'not actually contractions' get. Fingers crossed!

(it's been very odd, thinking to my body things like, 'ooh, hurt me, baby! But in a healthy and productive way, please!')

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chrysoula
Oct 28, 2003
Dreamfarmer

Fire In The Disco posted:

I don't even think you have to melt down in histrionics! I think you could go in and say, "I want to know where I stand right now, and I want to see about not going straight to a c-section on Friday if I haven't gone into labor by then. I would like to discuss my other options."

I'm not trying to push you, it just seems like your doctor really didn't listen to your concerns, and without even checking you dismissed how you were feeling. Even if you didn't have a successful induction 4 years ago, this is a different pregnancy, a different baby, and your body is different. I'm just angry for you!

I truly appreciate that. And it helps to feel heard somewhere.

I worry about the money, you know? My husband got laid off at Christmas and the COBRAfied insurance still requires a $100+ fee anytime I head into the Birth Center and it isn't scheduled or real labor-- anytime they send me home without a baby, basically. It's one reason (of many) I'd been hoping so much for a naturalish birth-- anathesiologists and surgical assistants are expensive! And obviously we'll cope when it reaches that point. But I get the impression that induction requires a lot of the same staff on hand if the induction turns into an emergency c-section?

(if I were not Reproductively Geriatric, gestationally diabetic and gestationally hypertensive, I would have switched to maybe a midwife when the layoff happened. Alas, I am too high risk.)

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