That’s all for now. Hope everyone is well, and I hope to be back with more soon…

Note: Ok, so this didn’t get finished until Torsten had been home almost a month, but given how much sleep I haven’t been getting, it’s a wonder it’s being posted at all

Dearest Torsten,

For a long time now, lots of your fans have been protesting the fact that we call you “Small Monster”, thinking that we must be declaring you some sort of abomination. While nothing could be further than the truth (we think monsters are snuggly and lovable and would, for example, invite Cookie Monster and Elmo over for a playdate, although we’d probably leave that whiny Telly Monster at home, and Barney, who is not strictly a monster but certainly is an abomination, is right out…), we are proud to tell you that you had a real name after all, one that your papa and I like very much: Torsten.

For those who are playing the home game (and the one person who rather randomly almost guessed it, knowing of my Thor fetish), Torsten means, literally, in various Germanic languages, “Thor’s stone”.

But it’s cooler than that, really… Old Norse/Icelandic, which is really very poetic (I had a blast studying it, but never really had the time to keep up with it or get far enough to cause much trouble), can use a phrase like “Thor’s stone” (Þorsteinn, in Icelandic) to mean a bunch of things. Not that I looked it up on Wikipedia before we chose it, but Wikipedia does mention that ‘it can be translated to “Thor’s stone”, “Thor’s hammer” or even “adamant as Thor”‘ – there’s also some old myth about a stone that Thor has rattling around in his head, so you can see that it can mean lots of things. Me, I just like the name. Also, it has “Thor” in it (and, let’s face it, it’s much nicer than the English equivalent, “Thurston”), and we know how I likes me some Thor. So whether it means Mjolnir or someone who has a really strong will, we like the name, Torsten, and we hope you do too. It seems to suit you, though I admit, you’re very sweet and I’m not letting some pagan god throw you into the sky to hit things and then fly back like a boomerang, even if it is Thor.

You have other names too, ones I won’t mention online for your privacy, but one is a family name and the other is in honor of a great friend of ours whom we really admire – we’re sure you would too.

But you’re still our Small Monster, and we mean that in the most loving way possible.

I thought I might steal an idea from Dooce (sorry, Dooce) and write you a little letter about you every month for a while, until you’re a little older anyway. And this letter, this letter is about how you came into the world, complete with some very bad pictures because Papa and the auto-focus don’t get along very well.

So Mama had a regular doctor’s appointment one afternoon to check on how you were doing in her belly. So far, you’d been doing fantastically – we’d even gotten to see some awesome pictures of you (which really do look like you when you sleep) – and Mama was just hoping we were getting closer to delivery. She hopped on the bus – for once, fortuitously, not taking 10,000 things with her – and went off to the doctor, hoping to have lunch after the 1 pm appointment.

In retrospect, she should have eaten first.

The appointment started off like every other appointment – listening to your beautiful heartbeat – and the doctor even pulled out the ultrasound to check on your size. Kiddo, those doctors were obsessed with how huge you were going to be, and boy, were they wrong. The doctor was thinking, on this particular day, that you were probably nine pounds, maybe ten, although he still deferred to the judgement of the perinatologist who didn’t think it was much to worry about when he saw you a couple of weeks ago.

Anyhow, then the doctor wanted to know if I wanted my cervix checked.

Now, in case someday you have yourself a pregnant wife, let me just say that no pregnant woman wants her cervix checked for fun – it’s uncomfortable – but we do want to know when we’re big and heavy and pregnant how things are rolling along. It doesn’t matter how many people on the pregnancy board tell us it serves no purpose, we want to know. Let me also say, though, that if we do make a brother or sister for you, next time around, they are going to stay the Hell away from my cervix until I’m in labor. Because this is how the exam went:

Doctor: <poking around with fingers> You’re three centimeters, and… sorry, I know this hurts…

Me: <breathing> It’s ok…

Doctor: <poking around more with fingers> and you’re… whoops.

Me: What?

Doctor: Well, dear, you’re being induced today…

Me: Um, huh?

Doctor: <flustered> I, uh, accidentally broke your water there. Never done that before, by accident, anyway… so you need to get your butt over to labor and delivery.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t entirely upset about this, because any day where you get to meet a Small Monster is a good day. But I also knew that being induced would at the very least lead to an induction, which often leads to a C-section, and no matter how pregnant I was, I wasn’t really wanting that.

So anyhow, I calmly called Papa and let him know what was going on, but that he didn’t need to be in a hurry. They checked me in to a labor room after making triply-sure I knew what being a confidential patient meant (“You do know that this will mean we pretend like you’re not here and we’ve never heard of you, don’t you?” – um, yes, fools, that was the idea…), and I got to change into a very stylish hospital gown and wait on the doctor to show up for a good while.

Meanwhile, I was leaving a message for your papa, trying to tell him what to bring from home, when the nurse actually did show up. At this point, all was a little unreal, and I still wasn’t entirely convinced we were going to bring a Small Monster into the world. You were happily rolling around in my tummy, and speaking of my tummy, at this point, I noticed that my room had a view of the Thai place and remembered that I had not had lunch yet.

I knew I wasn’t going to get any either, and since I hadn’t started having real contractions yet (though they claimed I was having them on the monitor), I wasn’t going to get any anytime soon.

So the nurses hooked me up to some monitors and then started an IV after royally screwing up on the first try (Mama had a huge bruise for days afterward) – one which the resident said really wasn’t necessary yet, and days later I wished I’d protested, since I’m now missing feeling in the wrist where they shoved the thing and left it for days – and Mama walked the halls for a bit in her stylish gown before realizing there really wasn’t any place to go. I went back to the room and danced around a bit there.

Bored bored bored.

Soon thereafter, Papa showed up, calm as Papa always is, and promptly got sent out to eat his own dinner (Thai!!!) and to head home to get some other things he didn’t know I needed when he’d stopped at home on the way to the hospital (note that all of this took him a while, since he took the bus, but it’s not like you were coming anytime soon…).

Meanwhile, various doctors and nurses stopped in and laughed at what the doctor had done – understand, this doctor, who I like very much, likes to give people a hard time I hear, and so I think they were looking forward to getting their own back, but nevertheless, this was my main form of entertainment for a while. The resident who was taking care of us, along with the HMO’s attending physician, stopped in to let us know that we were on a clock. I sort of knew this was going to happen, but basically, they were going to give us a few more hours before they decided to use Pitocin to induce labor. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and while C-sections were mentioned in passing, I really don’t think the attending was inclined to push one. Mostly we just talked about you being big. Which you were not.

Meanwhile, Mama decided to let some people know you were on your way. Via the Internet. Because Mama is a geek (click to embiggen):

But then there was a shift change, and another attending came on. Nice guy, but he was talking C-section from the beginning (with a trial of labor), and that made me a bit nervous. The clock expired and they put me on the Pitocin, which wasn’t initially such a big deal until I was informed that I wasn’t going to be allowed to get out of bed.

Now, in our childbirth classes, we’d been told we could get portable monitors and labor walking around, but the night nurses were having none of that. So I don’t think we had much of a chance to avoid the knife, to be frank.

Also, your Mama is a fool. I was going to try to do it without pain medications for as long as possible. And so they started the Pitocin, and kept increasing it, and I breathed and made it through the contractions pretty well for a long, long time. Of course, since I was lying in bed, those contractions had a pretty poor chance of doing much, and so after a long time, I’d only progressed to four centimeters. But still, that was progress, and I was thinking we’d still get to see you come out of an approved orifice.

Well.

They kept turning the Pitocin up, see. I guess there’s a scale of increments they go for, and the maximum they usually go to is 20 (though they can go higher), and they got Mama up to 20, and… holy cow. Most people will tell you Pitocin contractions are worse than normal contractions, and I can only hope so, because otherwise, I don’t understand how the human race can go on.

We went on with these contractions for a while, you and I, and the only good thing I can say about them is that you were hanging in there like a champ, doing just fine. And that, for the most part, is all I cared about.

(Well, that, and food, and food I wasn’t going to get, just apple and cranberry juice…)

But when they checked me some hours later and I was still at four (stupid lying in bed!), they decided to insert an internal contraction monitor to see if my contractions were strong enough to be making things progress. I could have answered that for them – those freaking hurt, and I suspect they could have gotten the Middle East peace process to progress – but anyway, it was clear they were getting antsy. Never a good sign.

Meanwhile, Papa and I watched episodes of The 4400 (yes, kiddo, your mother is such a geek that not only did she live-blog the start of labor for a few friends, but she also watched sci-fi while having evil contractions…), most of which I can’t remember because they were interrupted by me breathing and going “oh my God, oh my God…”.

We hates Pitocin.

Not long after this, Mama asked for pain medication. We decided we’d go for Fentanyl rather than an epidural, because all I wanted was a little rest, and you weren’t going to be coming all that soon anyhow. Plus, they can counteract the effects of Fentanyl pretty quickly in the baby if they need to, and I didn’t want anyone messing with my spine. But that’s just me.

And that first dose? That was the best thing ever. You seemed to be tolerating it fine, and me, I just felt tons better.

The nurse told me we could give me another dose every hour. Sounded good to me.

Of course, no one mentioned to me that after the first dose, it’d wear off after about half an hour. Or that if the baby was tolerating it, they could have given it to me every twenty minutes. So later in the night, I’d have about 30 minutes of moderate relief, and 30 minutes of breathing through horribly strong contractions.

It got to the point where I could tell when they were going to come. See, there was a machine next to me that pumped Pitocin into my IV, and it would click when it did so. Every other click, I would have one of those insane contractions, and it clicked pretty often. It got to the point where I wanted ear plugs just to avoid anticipating the click. Later, when we were recovering in our hospital room, the leg compression thingies they made me wear also clicked, and I had the Pavlovian response of cringing at every other one. You have a very odd Mama, kiddo.

But in spite of this all, all of the Pitocin and pain drugs and monitors, you were doing fine, little pumpkin, and that’s all that mattered.

About 6:30 the next morning, though, the doctor came in to have The Talk. I had known it was coming by then, especially when my contractions were certainly strong enough to have brought progress (I still am annoyed about having to labor in bed, though…) and I was only at four-and-a-half, and I was so tired from a night of Pitocin-induced pain that I really couldn’t complain. All night they kept saying, “Oh, good, the pain medication seems to be lasting you about an hour”, and I wanted to throttle them and say, “No, it lasts about 30 minutes, and sheer will power is lasting me the hour, damnit!”

But a Small Monster was coming, so what did any of that matter?

Well, anyhow, I’d had my trial of labor, and I was no more interested in subjecting you to whatever Pitocin does to little babies than I was to subjecting myself to the pain, and so after 13 hours of labor, all of a sudden, there were forms to be signed and discussions to be had and strange medications to be drunk, and a few nasty contractions later, we were in the operating room.

You were still, my pumpkin, doing great in there, and I am thankful.

I can’t say that I remember too much – it was very bright, and Papa was in there looking funny in his blue outfit. The spinal they gave me was really very bad, very uncomfortable. I had to sit on the edge of the table while they poked at my spine, and it really hurt. I kept thinking I was going to fall off the table, and let’s face it, no one wants anyone messing with her spinal cord area. Papa and a nurse kept Mama steady, though, and I’d felt the last contraction I’d feel that day.

All of a sudden, Mama was up on the operating table, a big sheet in front of her eyes (thank God – not that Mama didn’t want to see you born, but she really didn’t want to see her own internal organs…), with Papa sitting next to her being mostly soothing (except for mentioning the knife – bad Papa!).

In truth, the actual C-section wasn’t so bad.

Mostly, it felt like people poking me in the tummy, and it was clear everything was going fine. Most of this is kind of a blur to me now, but I do remember them all of a sudden waving a big blood-covered Torsten at me quickly before taking you over to check you out. Your Apgar scores were good (8 and 9, because we’re in Denver and it takes babies a little longer to get oxygenated), and I could hear Papa asking lots of questions.

Oh, and as for you being huge?

Not even eight pounds.

Bite me, modern medicine.

Anyhow, Papa took this lovely picture of you right after you were out (click to embiggen):

And then they brought you over to me – I think Papa was holding you – and, well, wow.

I have never been so in love in my whole life (sorry, Papa ). I have never seen such a beautiful little boy, big wide eyes and beautiful face and all, with perfect little hands and long fingers and lots and lots of brown hair. Mama was all covered with tubes and stuff and couldn’t touch you for a while, but that was ok – I got to lie there looking at your perfect little face and share the wonder of you coming into the world with Papa, and it was the most awesome thing ever.

Soon after, they rolled me onto the cart to take me into recovery, and I finally got to hold you and nurse you and cuddle you. (See picture, and yes, click to see full-size)

Mama was still a bit out of it from surgery and they kept having to take you away to bathe and weigh you, but it was so awesome finally having you out on the outside. Sure, all I had gotten to see were your face and hands, but you are still the most beautiful baby I’ve ever met.

(Sorry about this picture – remember what I said about Papa and the auto-focus? )

Not long afterward, we finally went off to the room where we’d spend the next several days. I have to say, Mama wasn’t really prepared for what it would be like to both be recovering from surgery and becoming a new mama, but in the hospital that was mostly manageable. Mama didn’t sleep much – she doesn’t like to sleep on her back – but you seemed to be fine and happy with the world and were cuddly and slept quite a bit.

We took a lot of pictures of you there, though mostly you’re swaddled, so I guess you’re kind of hard to see… sorry, kiddo

(Click to embiggen!)

Papa was great help in the evenings when he was there staying with us, and you and I tried very hard to learn how to nurse (the fact that the lactation consultant would never come when paged didn’t help…).

It was overwhelming and Mama wasn’t feeling too hot (although, for having a c-section, apparently I felt comparatively great), and sometimes we got lame nurses, and worst of all, there was always someone coming into the room at odd hours to poke you or poke me or check you or check me, but we were doing ok. You’d lost some weight and were turning a little yellow, but we were assured that both things were normal and nothing to worry about.

Finally, a few days later, we were about to leave, when suddenly it seemed as if the doctors noticed your weight and your color for the first time, and it made for a rough homecoming for us. Suddenly, the nurse practitioner who’d thought you were fine the day before was saying you’d lost more than 10% of your body weight (probably because Mama’s milk had just come in, and you’d not had any time to take advantage of it), and you were more jaundiced than they’d have liked (though not enough to treat), and then there were lots of people hovering around giving Mama instructions on how to feed you with supplements and what had been a fairly relaxed morning leading up to your homecoming was all of a sudden filled with worry. You got prodded and weighed again, and Mama was a mess as at the last minute someone tried to show her how to use a breast pump.

By the time we got you into your car seat to come home, you were crying and Mama was about to cry, and poor Papa was having to deal with both of us. We did both decide to stop before we left the room, though

Once we got you home, pumpkin, I admit it, it was tough, but that’s not because of you. You’re really a good baby – you cry when you’re wet or you’re hungry, as babies are wont to do, but the rest of the time, you’re usually just curious, staring around with those big beautiful eyes. The first nights at home were rough, as they always are, and were a bit rougher because Mama had to feed you, then pump, then give you a supplement, and as much as Papa helped, it meant very little time to enjoy you in the beginning, which is too bad, because you’re a very sweet, wonderful little boy. Mama loves to smell your sweet little baby smells and cuddle you and watch you make big eyes when you see a face, but mostly, you smell Mama’s milk and are more interested in my cow function than much else – this makes it a little hard to find playtime, especially if you’re hungry most of the time.

(And did I mention that your Papa is awesome and that you worship the thin ice he walks on? Click to embiggen…)

We’ll try to be better about that in the future – we’re working hard to get the feeding thing straightened out – but I promise you that no matter how tough these first few weeks are, I wouldn’t trade you for sleep or comfort now matter how appealing they are right now.

We love you very much, little pumpkin.

Welcome home!

Love,

Mama

Ok, so it’s 4:30 am on Sunday, but I’m still up and just about to go to bed on an enforced-bedtime-so-that-I-don’t-sleep-too-late-Monday deadline. Yeah, yeah, 4:30 am is too late by anyone’s measure, but it was 6:30 or something yesterday, and so I figured if I can turn it back to 2:30 by tomorrow, I’ll be doing well.

Small Monster, for those of you keeping track, is still in there. He’s increasingly cramped, which makes my belly dancing especially interesting (note: I do not belly dance. My belly dances. Like does the wave all by itself. Big difference), and there are times when I really feel like he may just claw his way out through my belly button. I am so big and round right now that I might not even complain.

Kid, I am so ready for you to come out. It’s like, I knew before there was a baby in there, you know, the size and kind of baby they show in pictures in A Child is Born, but your size and the power of your muscles make it clear that there’s a full-grown baby in there. As in the kind we have here on the outside. So it’s time for you to come out.

But so far, kid seems to be staying in, and happy about it (I’m a little afraid he’s going to start ordering Domino’s for delivery to his little house. That delivery man is so not coming to the door, I’m telling you, child). None of the things they tell you might work is bringing it on so far (pineapple, spicy food, squats, walking, the full moon, etc), but I figure it just means he isn’t quite ready, so I’ll keep on walking and squatting and eating peppers like a fool. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s some early labor stuff going on – I’m crampy and all, and my back aches like Hell sometimes, so I figure (pray) my cervix is probably progressing some more, but as far as I can tell, he still hasn’t dropped all the way into my pelvis – he seems to much prefer sticking his fist in there, or at least that’s what it feels like. It’s creepy. And that’s as far as it goes. I’m just hoping they don’t get to the point where they decide they have to induce on my due date.

So, as a special message to my son: Come on down, Small Monster! You’re the next contestant on The Price is Right! (N.B.: Price = $300, which is about $293 more than my parents paid for me – $260 more, really, adjusted for inflation – but then, I was born in special circumstances )

Anyhow. Mostly it’s just waiting now. I got another 6k out on the novel, which puts me within easy striking range of the big 50k, but like the last time I won, the novel isn’t nearly done (my last one hit about 90k by the time I finished it, and I figure I’m about halfway through the storyline on this one). There’s no way in Hell I plan on trying to finish this one before the kid comes, but it gives me something to do other than to check websites going, “Is this a sign of labor? how about this? does this mean I’ll deliver this week? come on, kid, come out!” Not that I don’t have more to do than that, but it’s a favorite pastime of enormously pregnant women.

Other than that, I cooked a big turkey breast today (Grothoff tradition – don’t buy turkey until the day after Thanksgiving. We’re weirdos like that ) and did a wee bit of coding. Not much accomplished, but then, I didn’t have to I’m totally not going to stress and tire myself out in the next couple of weeks – I have labor to look forward to and all, and I figure that’ll be enough work for me.

So today was the perinatologist appointment.

And what do you know, Small Monster is yeah, ok, a little big (especially his head, full of brains!), but the doctor said that there was no reason to think this kid would need a C-section based on size and that everything looked very very good!

He’s not nearly as much more enormous than he should be as he seemed at 30 weeks (or at my appointments afterward), so it looks like we’re headed for the long, hard birth with not getting sliced open, if all else goes well!

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy!

And in bonus news, the kid is head-down, not posterior (but is instead turned to the side as he should be), and he’s down low.

All good signs

Yay Small Monster!

(In other news, the doctor isn’t worried about the abdominal thing, just wants me to take it easy. I have, and it’s been much less painful today!)

So. Small Monster has now officially been in there for 8 months, and the evil landlord Mama Monster is hoping to file eviction papers in a couple of weeks.

Yes, yes, I know, it’s more likely that he’ll go on to 42 weeks and I’ll have several more weeks where my hips feel like they’re going to fall off, but let me fantasize, will you?

Of course, that’s presuming the doctors don’t kick him out earlier. One week until the decisive ultrasound, and then we’ll see how it goes…

So this morning’s midwife appointment was uneventful – baby is still very big as far as they can tell from the outside. The fact that he’s consistently measuring big, and by about the same amount every time, makes me significantly less skeptical of the diagnosis, but we won’t be really worried about making decisions about it until the 36-week ultrasound. If he comes then or before then, the decisions won’t be related to size, and once we’ve had the ultrasound, well, then we go with our best guesses, and with the doctor’s input, I hope we can at least be in a place where we have a few sets of scenarios to work with. If the only option left on the table is a scheduled C-section, so be it – I can’t say I like the idea, but I’m prepared for the possibility.

It’s kind of funny – I was talking to a friend of mine (a former co-worker) yesterday, and he wondered why it is that I wouldn’t really want a C-section. He’s very Southern California (and awesome, so don’t get the idea that I’m knocking him!), and I’m still not sure if he was just trying to reassure me or if there is some SoCal idea that getting cut is no bigger deal than, um, getting stretched. I’m not a fan of major abdominal surgery if it can be avoided, but your personal mileage may vary. Obviously, I prefer doing it the way women have been doing it for thousands of years, but given that I’m not too keen on what also happened for most of those thousands of years before modern medicine (lots of women and babies dying/being injured in childbirth), I’m not going to say no or freak if it happens to be the best option, so I’m not going to go all zealous on my doctors or anything. I just want to be sure it doesn’t get done without a good reason – and I consider Small Monster’s health a good reason, if it’s a clear and significant risk.

In other news, I now have a good idea of how Not-So-Small Monster is positioned. He moves a lot, but I don’t think he’s actually changed position much in the past few days, probably as a result of him being so big and not having too much room in there. I’m actually wondering if his head is engaged, because I have a lot of strange, low pressure in my pelvis and hips as if something is pushing my hips apart (and there is another sign, but not one I want to share on the Internet, thank you ), but in any event, Kiddo’s back appears to be on my right side, and his little feet kick me on the upper left.

In what may be good news, my midwife was glad that I have an ultrasound scheduled for 2 weeks from now because she wants to confirm that the baby is head-down (I’m nearly positive that he is – he’d turned at my last ultrasound, and I’m pretty sure those are his feet popping out occasionally at the top of my uterus). The reason this is good news is that needing to know if the baby is head-down or not suggests to me that labor is still possibly on the table, where I’d like to keep it.

Anyhow, that’s all there is to report – little guy has started moving even when I’m busy and walking around, which may or may not be a bad sign for future attempts to soothe him (if he can stay awake through being rocked back and forth all over town, what hope do we have for hanging on to any future threads of our collective sanity? )! And me, I’m doing fine. Tired of being so huge, but, hey, I’ll get to go through the most rapid weight loss ever in a few weeks (even if I won’t lose nearly enough )…

I’d just like to state for the record that I hate Braxton Hicks contractions – no, they don’t hurt or anything, they’re just distracting, and combined with the baby’s head on my bladder, they’re no fun.

I’m sitting here, minding my own business, and my uterus is trying to show off. All the time lately.

All I can say is that I hope they’re preparing me for labor in a few weeks and not, you know, just screwing around.

First of all, I’m feeling much better. Imodium AD is my new hero. That is all I have to say about that.

So today was the first childbirth class, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as we were fearing. I actually learned some useful things, as opposed to the breastfeeding class, where I learned (yet again) that there is clearly no I.Q. test for reproduction.

I’m basically trying to maximize my chances to be allowed to try labor instead of being commanded to have a c-section (do not pass go, do not collect $200). There’s still only a chance I’ll be allowed a trial of labor, but the instructor did talk to me about what I could do to get the baby’s head to engage so I could maximize my chances. That was very useful. And the practice labor positions and stuff were all good.

Still, there was all of the crap from the too-much-pedagogy-not-enough-teaching school of education – you know, unnecessary groupwork, introducing your neighbors to the group, drawing abstract pictures, multimodal blah blah blah, etc. I know, I know, this is not my cup of tea, but if I could name one thing that has made school suck even more since I left it, it’s this turn toward a “let’s try to accomodate 20 ‘learning styles’” mode of communication. It never ceases to piss me off.

All in all, though, I think it was worth it, so it was good.

Now let’s all hope and pray I get to use any of it…

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.

Had an OB appointment today, which went fine, for the most part. Blood pressure is back down, and baby is fine.

Well, except that he may be enormous… Both my OB 2 weeks ago and the midwife today measure him about um… 5 weeks larger than his gestational age.

Now… we know when this little monster was created. When he was a little little monster, he always measured a couple of days bigger than his gestational age, which is pretty much within the bounds of statistical error, so no big deal. He also has a father that is enormously tall, and uncle who was a very very big baby, and an overweight mom, so him being big wouldn’t be a surprise at all.

But… again, I’m overweight, and I had a belly pooch before the baby, which is still there. Plus I have a swayback, which makes my belly curve up. I think you can see where I’m going with this (read: he may not be as big as they think he is…) , but I guess we’ll see.

I get an ultrasound next week, so they can have a closer look at the actual baby. The thing is, I’ve read stories from a whole heap of mothers saying that they were measured physically and via ultrasound with 10+ lb. babies and the babies were only 7 or 8 at birth. So I’m not sure what to think, but we’ll see.

Practically speaking, for Small Monster, this isn’t a big thing, except for how he’ll be delivered. If he’s that big, it means a pretty good chance of a C-section, although I might find that they’ll let me try labor first. I guess we’ll see more next week. It may be that he’s just fine, but I think my epidural-free labor is looking less and less likely…

The upside is that I get to see Small Monster again, and maybe verify that he’s a he

So anyhow, all is good, and I’m not making this up. Small Monster just decided he liked to GROW, see…