I'm feeling quite overwhelmed by how much God has blessed us. Everything looks fine on the scan today. Our wonderful staff specialist sonographer made the comment that you'd never know this baby had a troubled history from looking at things now. Amazing.
Today's surprise is that amniotic fluid levels have come way back down. 2 weeks ago we were at 26.8cm, last week 25.8. Normal is between 5 and 25 cm. Today: 17.something! (They were so busy at Maternal Foetal Medicine that we elected not to wait for the report, so I'm doing things from memory). That's another risk factor that we don't need to worry about any more.
Now that the fluid inside baby has gone, we were able to get a better look at Baby's size, and that's also better than expected. Baby growth is around the 14th percentile, or around 2.6 kg at the moment (though there's considerable error in scan measurements). Tracking along the graph, I figure we could be looking at around the 3 kg mark at delivery, which is perfectly respectable. Turns out baby does just have short thighs compared to the rest of it.
And the news you've been waiting for: we're booked an induction for Thursday 22 December, which means going in on the Wednesday evening and probably having prostaglandin gel, then breaking waters in the morning. There was much discussion about this date and course of action.
- From the baby's point of view, we could have gone longer and let baby grow a bit more. The doctors would even be happy to wait for spontaneous labour, even a few days after my due date. But it doesn't make too much difference now that we've come this far. 37 weeks is considered 'term' (that's today!!), so 38 weeks 6 days is fine.
- For my health, not waiting too much longer is a good thing. I've been on these drugs for some weeks now, and while my heart appears to be coping ok, I am experiencing side effects (mostly tiring very quickly). So getting baby out and weaning me off the drugs is a good idea.
- I'm still a bit concerned about my ability to go through labour, given my lack of energy, but I've heard an epidural is a wonderful thing. Since the baby's heart rhythm is stable, labour poses no particular risks to its health, and avoiding a caesarean would be good if possible.
So unless it's God's plan that I go into labour earlier, it looks like 22 December will be the day.
Dave, SP & I did a quick tour of the nursery as well. The baby will definitely go there post-birth, hopefully just for lots of tests and not too much treatment. But if treatment is needed, that's the place to be :)
I think that's it for now. God is SO good.
Wow. Wow. And wow! Thankyou Lord for the amazing progress with the little one! Out of my 4 babies I've been induced with 3 so I've been there. An induction does not necessarily mean a hard and fast labour. I personally only like one rounds of gel and a big wait after gels before breaking of waters. We will continue to pray for you all and especially you Petrina for a smooth and event-free labour. Much love, the Nivens ooox+x
ReplyDeleteI was induced with SP too, so it's nice to have been there and done that. And I'll actually be praying it's faster with this one - last time they kept putting the sintocinon up and up it was a lot of hours before anything happened.
ReplyDeletePrayers always appreciated :)
God is just so amazing and He never cease to amaze me! I was induced with both Elijah and Trinity for different reasons. Elijah being my first labour was very long (26hrs), they've used the gel plus way too much sintocinon and still uneventful. But somehow with Trinity, my obstretrician gave me one round of gel at 8pm, broke my waters at 8.30am and Trinity was out and screaming by 10.41am!! So we'll be thinking of you and I'll pray for a smooth, quicker labour for you, but not as quick as Trinity's... ;-) Love, Rayne, Steve and kiddies
ReplyDeleteGreat news - I'll be sure to keep on praying!
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