How your baby's growing:Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position. But if she isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating her from the outside of your belly.
At the doctor today, I got to see my regular doctor's partner. She is an awesome lady but both times I've seen her I've had to wait on the exam table for over an hour. So today I wait for about an hour and then I can't help it, I start crying in the exam room. Gees, but I was so uncomfortable and frustrated. Oh yeah, and did I mention that the room I was in is also the house for all of the computer equipment so it was hot as heck in there? So then the nurse comes in and tells me it will only be a little longer. When the doctor arrived she remarked that wow my face was red, well no kidding I was crying. She then says oh you are swollen and pokes on my ankles, well no kidding my feet have been hanging over the edge of the exam table for and hour and fifteen minutes. Then she does a pelvic exam and tells me that I am a fingertip dilated. Then she does an exam on the outside and makes an astonished face when she's feeling the head. I'm like OMG what's wrong! She then says that the baby has a ginormous head. Oh gees, not what I wanted to hear. She also estimated the baby at 7 pounds. So anyway, she tells me to start walking to bring on labor, so Noel and I went for a walk this evening. And I'm also trying some remedies I read online too, such as spicy food, I had HOT wings for dinner, and pineapple, got one at the store tonight. I think I'll skip the Castor oil, it'd probably just give me diarrhea.
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2 comments:
Carrie I swear I would call and demand that you get an ultrasound at your next appointment- it will make you feel a lot better about everything!
doctors are so insensitive sometimes. She is probably just turned funny so it feels like her head is "ginormous". An ultrasound can better estimate the size and weight of the baby but it's still just an estimate. Don't worry about it too much.
I'd skip the casor oil too. I've heard green bananas can do the trick, so can eggplant parmesian, so can a caesar salad. Walking does help though, gravity will help move the baby down. In the end the baby will come when she's ready no matter what you do. I was dilated 3cm for about a week and a half before Wyatt was born so I don't think it makes much difference if you are or aren't.
Good luck!!
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