Once I hit the third trimester, things started feeling like maybe they would work out. I didn't relax, but I did slowly start releasing that breath I'd been holding. At the same time, my anxiety went up. I couldn't bear the thought of what would happen if something went wrong at this point.
I've mentioned before that August 29 is evil. It's the anniversary of Katrina. It's the weekend I started losing my first baby. It's the due date of the second lost baby. It causes me anxiety every year.
So in 2015, we decided to take it back.
I had resisted doing a registry. But now it was about three months until my due date and my cousin and my best friend were planning a shower. I needed to get some things on the registry. I decided that August 29, which was the tenth anniversary of Katrina, would be the day we would go. It had been such an awful day for ten years. We were going to give it a good event and would also keep my mind off of things.
We made it through almost the whole store and ended at the breastfeeding stuff. I was worn out and my feet hurt and I was just ready to give up because I had no idea what I needed and what I didn't need. So Alicia said she'd go back and walk me through it another day. She called while we were registering to ask my opinion on a few things for the shower because she and Yanna were planning the party at the same time. And while that happened, her son took his first steps. 😁
Anyway, other than being so tired and dealing with a sizeable amount of round ligament pain, we went home. It was as close to at peace as I'd felt on this day in ten years.
Slowly, my friends were having their babies. All of the summer ones were here. The August one was here. September was gearing up. And as each baby came, I moved further up to the front of the line.
I failed the first glucose test and passed the second. I started my NST tests twice a week at week 34. At 36 weeks, I saw my MFM specialist for the last time. More on that later.
I was working my ass off at school. I had to keep up with my extracurricular activities as usual.
That meant bowling with six teams of four kids every Wednesday and keeping stats. Thankfully, my friend Doris, who was in her second year at school, had decided to be my assistant coach. So I started training her to handle all of the bowling responsibilities: schedules, stat tracking, rules and regulations, etc.
That meant coming up with a schedule of events for the year and making sure a journalism kid was assigned to take pictures at every event, as well as assigning yearbook pages through February.
That meant coming up with lesson plans for the week before Thanksgiving (just in case) until Mardi Gras break. And compiling everything for all four preps into a huge binder. That meant running copies so the sub wouldn't have to worry about it.
That also meant directing the school play. I had to hold auditions in August and begin rehearsals in September. Rehearsals started ending at four and ran Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday until November. I moved the play up a week just in case, too, so I had one less week to prepare the kids. By the week of dress rehearsals, I was there until 6 p.m. Every day. I was also 36 weeks pregnant at the time.
The play was Romeo and Juliet. Doris was my art director and also the person I was training to take over in case I got put on actual bed rest or went into labor early.
I had to get two senior parents who always helped with set builds and Doris to help me out. I couldn't be around the paint, sonart teacher Doris handled it. I came up with designs and she made them come to life. I couldn't lift anything or carry anything. The year before, when we did Aladdin, I made most of the costumes. This year I had the kids get their own. Doris was my angel. She did everything she could to keep the kids from raising my blood pressure haha. It was one of our best shows ever.
The weekend of our final build, we were building Juliet's balcony. I brought the giant cardboard box the baby's dresser arrived in to cut up and paint. And then the blade slipped and cut my left hand pretty bad. I almost went to the ER, but I got the bleeding under control. May have needed a stitch or two, but liquid bandages helped a lot and I survived. I was up-to-date on my tetanus shots anyway.
But the best thing of all? The dresser's name was on the box. It was: Verona.
Too good.
The play was amazing. Probably the best show we ever did. I was so proud of them. They presented me with flowers, a card, a Babies R Us gift card, and a framed collage of goofy pics of the cast and crew (including me). It was so wonderful. I love those kids.
That night, we left the play and went straight to Morgan City for his grandparents' 60th anniversary dinner. I thought my bladder would burst. That's an hour and a half in a car at 36 weeks. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. I was so uncomfortable. But we weren't really given a choice. Remember that several posts from now.
In addition to work stress, I had emotional stress. I mentioned that my Dad's ulcerative colitis was at its worst. We really thought we would lose him. His doctor finally said she'd done all she could and that surgery was the only thing left. He finally had come to terms with this possibility about a month prior. His surgery was scheduled for mid-October. They moved it up a week when he went for his next appointment. Then, they moved it up again. The hospital didn't want to do the surgery then, we found out later, because he was so dangerously anemic. The doctor and the surgeon fought for him and said that if he didn't have his colon removed, he would die. It was an emergency. And so they let it happen.
I left work early that day to keep my mom company at the hospital. Everything went well. It took hours for them to let us see him. They finally let us go to the recovery room. He looked awful and you could see he was in terrible pain. They moved him to his real room and we went to see him. He was so groggy and kept saying to the nurses "That's my grandbaby there."
The next day, I had an MFM appointment. We had my mom come with us since it was at the same hospital where my dad was. She was so excited to see that little face in 4 D.
When that was over, we went to see Dad. He kept saying things like "Take care of that grandbaby for me."
Please note that my dad thinks ultrasounds are disgusting and that he refused to look at any of them. He didn't even want to hear about that appointment, not even drugged up, haha.
Every Halloween, the faculty dressed in costumes to a theme. I started that my second year there, and it was my responsibility to pick the theme. I usually picked it based on a costume I had for camp already, or for a costume I just wanted to do. This year, I had to consider my new body. What would I be? I'd been googling pregnant costumes, and everything sucked. Well, I did see Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, so I would do that for our friend Halloween party. But what could I do at school?
Watching a Saints game one day, there was a shot where I went "Who's that pregnant woman?" Then I realized it was defensive coordinator Rob Ryan in profile. I knew. That was my costume. I bought a grey wig and a maternity Saints shirt. I got sweatpants, too. I borrowed Mark's headset mic for his computer and got grey face paint to make a beard. I decided the theme was celebrities. Our religion teacher came as Sean Payton and the secretary upstairs was Drew Brees. A lower school teacher was Marques Colston. So that was a fun group costume. We had a half day that day, so we went to Fat Harry's for lunch. I was a huge hit in my costume.
I was Carl for our friends' party and then I was a black cat on Halloween.
My school held a Thanksgiving Feast the Thursday before Thanksgiving break. There's a picture of me and the girl due right after me standing in the hallway. We both look so done. I was 37 weeks, she was 36. She had a girl. The bellies we have prove that. I had a boy and carried him so low. Her girl was up very high. I also had dropped already. The Friday of the performance, one of my coworkers came to congratulate me after the show and she said "Somehow, you look way more pregnant tonight than you did this morning!" That's when I knew he dropped.
I was thankful that when he dropped, he turned. More on that in a minute.
The Feast was a half day, and then we had a staff meeting. I was very annoyed until I found out that the staff meeting was a cover for a small party for the two of us. Kelsey had a scheduled induction on December 1 to make sure her mom would be in town for the birth. I had an appointment that afternoon and would see what my doctor had planned.
The week before, I went to the MFM. Some good news: the baby had a urine issue early on. That had completely resolved itself. She was very serious as she told me important information that had me slightly worried, though. She said the baby was breech and also that the stomach looked bigger than the head. While that didn't mean anything was wrong with him, it did present a problem for delivery.
The head is supposed to be the biggest part. It paves the way for the rest of the body. The birth canal adjusts to the head size. So if the head is bigger, the rest should come out easily. But if the belly is bigger, it presents a problem. The birth canal will have trouble adjusting to release the rest. It didn't mean that I had to have a c-section. But my doctor would not be allowed to use forceps, vacuums, etc. to remove him. She would have to go slow and be careful.
But other than that, I was done with her.
The Monday of Thanksgiving week, my doctor basically said the MFM had her scared on the phone that day. She thought she'd have to cancel her appointments and scrub up haha. But she did agree that we should probably induce a week early, which would be December 1, my Dad's birthday. The same day as Kelsey from work. That meant we had a week and a day to prepare.
Thanksgiving was an NST day for me. My doctor would be having Thanksgiving with her family in Cut Off and was bringing my MFM doctor with her, since it was Dr. C's first holiday without her parents around. That's incredibly sweet, but I was concerned. L told me not to go into labor, because they would be together and the food was too good to leave and/or miss. So since neither of them could do my NST, I had to go to the hospital. I parked on the women's center floor of the garage and walked all the way down to the entrance only to realize that because it was a holiday, the entrance was closed. Waddled all the way back to the car and drove to an open level. Cruel!
So an NST is easy. You lay on the exam table propped up. They attach two Velcro belts around your middle. It measures heart rate and movement. You hang out quietly and listen to the heartbeat. The test checks fetal movements. You get left alone for a while and they have the volume up loud enough that they can hear it down the hall. One day, he had hiccups and kept smacking the monitor. So you heard the heart beat and then what sounded like someone smacking a microphone over and over again. L came in at one point to see what was going on, because you could hear him in the lobby!
I used to love listening to him and watching him move then.
It was at one of those appointments after he dropped that we discovered that he was no longer in breech. We know because when the nurse went to hook me up to the machine, she couldn't get it in the right spot to find the heartbeat. She said "oh maybe it flipped!" and she put it cattycorner to where he normally was. Boom. Nailed it. I was so excited.
Oh and one day, I was trying to put the sheets on the crib, but I misjudged the space I had. I turned badly and smacked the hell out of my belly. I bruise easily anyway, and since I take aspirin for the MTHFR, I bruise spectacularly. The nurse had a hearty laugh when I explained my disgusting belly bruise.
Have I mentioned that nurse is named Hope?
Anyway, the test went quickly Thanksgiving morning. I had to go alone because Mark was at work. The test went quickly because he was so active. The nurse running the test at the hospital would be working while I was being induced. As I left, she said "See you Tuesday night!" It was Thursday. Holy crap. Things were getting real.
Confident that I was going to make it to Thanksgiving across the lake at my aunt and uncle's house, I happily left. I had been nervous about the drive, but my aunt and their two daughters are nurses and my cousin's husband was in anesthesiology school, so I knew I'd be in good hands if I went into labor. Spoiler alert: I didn't.
But guys. God's gift to pregnant women is 9-months-pregnant Thanksgiving. I ate all the things. I had on a maternity dress, so there was no tight pants situation. I could just eat. And eat I did.
They wanted to take a group picture of the great-grandkids and they wanted my stomach in there. I didn't want that all over FB. I also didn't want the memory if something went wrong in the next few days. I regret it now. But at the time, I couldn't handle it.
The next day was Black Friday. Mom and I always have lunch and hit sales in the afternoon. We went to The Esplanade because it would be practically empty. I barely made it out of Macy's. We needed pajamas I could wear in the hospital that buttoned. We slowly made our way to Target and I had to take a break. The end was near and I just couldn't do it. So we went back to their house for dinner.
The countdown was on. One last NST on Monday, and checking into the hospital Tuesday night with hopefully a baby Wednesday morning.
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