Nine Days…
If you calculate my remaining hospital time in a generous way—not counting today or the day of my C-section—then there are nine days left of this maddening in-betweenness. In nine days, we will have another baby—and even though there are three more nights of recovery after that, it will be different from this waiting period, this state of quasi-life. Nine days till we can finally meet this new little one and make our grand entrance once again into sleepless, chaotic, all-encompassing Newborn Land. Two boxes of newborn-size diapers arrived last week, giving Andrew a little jolt—those diapers are unbelievably tiny. He brought some to me in my hospital bag, and they look like something we should be putting on Lucia’s stuffed animals.
Today I asked my doctor whether there was any chance of making it to 38 weeks if I didn’t have a Big Bleed; she said she would never allow a patient with CPP to go beyond 37 weeks. I have no desire to stay an extra minute in the hospital, but of course I want to give the baby as much growing time as possible, so I felt obligated to ask. Fortunately, the doctor said that even if I gave birth today, the baby would be fine—she was already a good size two weeks ago, at 5 pounds 5 ounces; larger, she said, then two full-term babies she’d delivered last week. This was reassuring to hear. I’ll have another ultrasound this week to check her growth.
Considering the steroid shots I got, the baby’s size, and the fact that I’m 35.5 weeks along, no one seems very worried anymore about me or the baby. She breezes through her non-stress test each morning, creating beautiful heart-rate “tracings,” already a straight-A student. It’s just time now to wait. Nine days.
Today I asked my doctor whether there was any chance of making it to 38 weeks if I didn’t have a Big Bleed; she said she would never allow a patient with CPP to go beyond 37 weeks. I have no desire to stay an extra minute in the hospital, but of course I want to give the baby as much growing time as possible, so I felt obligated to ask. Fortunately, the doctor said that even if I gave birth today, the baby would be fine—she was already a good size two weeks ago, at 5 pounds 5 ounces; larger, she said, then two full-term babies she’d delivered last week. This was reassuring to hear. I’ll have another ultrasound this week to check her growth.
Considering the steroid shots I got, the baby’s size, and the fact that I’m 35.5 weeks along, no one seems very worried anymore about me or the baby. She breezes through her non-stress test each morning, creating beautiful heart-rate “tracings,” already a straight-A student. It’s just time now to wait. Nine days.
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