Wednesday, 17 June 2009

• 37 and pregnant

  After 15 weeks of rough all day long morning sickness and extreme exhaustion, I'm starting to feel human again. Now I only get exhausted after getting ready for work and then again after making dinner. My ankles are swollen, my diabetes is misbehaving (I'm on insulin now) and this round ligament pain is new to me. It didn't happen the first time around ages ago when I was 21!

  So now I'm 18 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I'm showing and the baby is kicking a lot now. I'm considered high risk because I'm so old and have diabetes, so I see the doctors a lot. My next ultrasound is in July, so I'll hopefully have an updated picture of the baby. It's a boy. We still haven't figured out a name for him yet, though have several picked out to choose from.

  I'm pretty excited, I'll be staying home during the day with him and will get to avoid the horrors of childcare centers and can breastfeed and be with him a lot. I'll have a part time job a couple nights and weekends, hopefully something at a book store or something simple like stocking shelves at the grocery store.

  I'm also scared. He eventually has to come out. I fear c-sections, which are done a lot. I fear not being in control, hospitals like to do it their way. I'm working on a birth plan (no drugs unless I ask, ability to move/walk during labor, etc.) and hope I can get to use it. Pregnant women have rights and they don't know about them. They let the hospitals and doctors deal with labor in ways that are convenient to them, but not helpful and safe for the mother and child. Being stuck in a bed on your back and pumped full of drugs is NOT the way to do it. I'd definitely be doing a home labor with a midwife if I weren't such a high risk pregnancy.

  Oh, and for my first birth the drugs didn't work. So I know I can do it without them. I just don't want to be flat on my back for 22 hours again! The baby doesn't come out so easy that way.

  
  

  Here he is at 13 weeks:

   

  

   

  I'm educating myself on childbirth and really recommend that other pregnant women do the same.

   

  Currently The Business of Being Born By Patricia Burkhardt, Tina Cassidy, Abby Epstein, Ina May Gaskin, Ricki Lake see related

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