Week 31: Clearly his father’s son…

30 weeks, 3 days.

I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath (yes, I did spell that right – look it up) to know what happened at the ultrasound. I’ve been a busy and tired expectant mama (this kid gets very heavy by day’s end… carrying this belly around is work!), but here it is…

The good news:

Our little boy – and yes, he is a boy (or, as the perinatologist put it, if it’s a girl, it’s a girl with a scrotum and a penis… way to make your patient cringe!) – is very healthy. He’s proportional, he’s making the little breathing motions he’s supposed to, he’s got all the right parts in all the right places, etc.

Also, he’s very cute. His mama is madly in love with him already.

(See next post, when I get around to it.)

The other news:

Even with a 10% margin of error in either direction (which is what the perinatologist told me was usual) , our little boy is big. Not fat, not overfed, but clearly related to his extremely tall father. The doc doing the ultrasound looked at me in amazement as he measured the femur bone (which I think was about the first thing he did after showing me that there were very definitely boy parts), and said, “that is one… big… femur.” He was clearly surprised. Obviously, my immediate thought was, “Oh crap… is the baby deformed? Am I going to have some normal sized little boy who wanders around looking like he’s on stilts?”, because, let’s face it, when the doctor is surprised, unless it’s because of a miraculous recovery from cancer, it’s usually not good.

Anyhow. He went around measuring the rest of the kid (head, stomach, etc.), showing me Small Monster’s little breathing movements (they practice in utero) and pointing out bits and pieces, and let me know the kid was healthy, and proportional, but that he was um… well… off the charts in terms of size. Now, again, I’ve heard that these ultrasound measurements don’t really reflect baby’s size very accurately, but as I said, the doc’s eyes were almost popping out.

Baby measures, pretty much all over, at around 3 weeks ahead of schedule. He’s about 4.25 pounds, which is a lot bigger than the 3.4 he should be at this point. The doctor wasn’t worried or anything – again, all the baby’s parts are proportional – but he confirmed what my OB is worried about: birth, not the baby.

Now… what I’ve been worried about, as I mentioned before, is being pushed into a C-section. I’m not anti-C-section; I’m anti-frivolous-C-section-done-simply-for-liability-purposes, if you get my drift, and we here in the U.S. are really good at doing that. That said, my discussion with the perinatologist was good. The first thing he asked me after he saw Not-So-Small Monster’s leg was how I felt about a C-section; he was actually asking, not trying to warn me, I think, and so I told him the truth – I’m not strictly against anything that’s medically necessary, but along the same lines, I don’t want a C-section I don’t need, and I’d rather avoid major surgery when possible.

He gave me some guidelines to consider and then told me not to worry about it until we’re closer to labor. I’ll have a repeat ultrasound closer to labor – if Small Monster measures 4000 grams or less (8.8 lbs) and his head is engaged when we go into labor, given that the 10% margin of error would put us between about 7.9 and 9.7 pounds, if everything else looks good, then considering labor is a real option (of course, if his head isn’t engaged in the pelvis, or he’s breech, all bets are off). If, on the other hand, he’s a 4500 gram or larger baby according to the ultrasound (9.9 lbs., but between 8.9 and 10.9 lbs with margin of error), then we would really seriously want to look at other options. Yes, I know women give vaginal birth to babies that large, and I’ll see how I feel about all of it when the time comes.

But the other thing he said very clearly was this – no one knows what’ll happen, or how he’ll grow between now and when I deliver. He may well be on track to be an 11 pound baby, but decide to come at 36 weeks and thus not be a problem for a vaginal delivery. Or he may not measure as large (compared to dates) at the next ultrasound. Or whatever. Or it may be that something else happens which makes a C-section necessary other than size. He made a point of, after asking who my OB was, telling me that he felt like my OB was a really responsible doctor (which is how I feel about my OB anyway), so at least as far as the medical establishment that’ll be handling me prior to labor goes, I feel better about getting information instead of dictates. I’m very comfortable with my OB and the information he’s given me so far – he seems to be a very no-panic matter-of-fact wait-and-see kind of doctor (could I have put more hyphens in there?).

So anyhow.

It’s no surprise that Small Monster’s a big baby – his father is big, his uncle is big, my uncle is big (6’7″), and just because I’m a dwarf (relatively speaking) doesn’t mean the genes aren’t all there to create a very long, large baby. So we’ll wait and see. I at least feel better informed.

And that’s the latest Small Monster news. 2 weeks until my next OB appointment (which is thankfully with my OB – I like the nurse midwife, but I think I’d rather discuss the ultrasound and whatever else we need to look at with the OB first), and in the meantime, Small Monster is squirming in his cramped quarters and making Mama want a snack.