Today T is six weeks old and yesterday I had my postpartum visit with Dr. OB.
It was pretty standard stuff: How are you feeling? How is breastfeeding/pumping going? Are you still bleeding? What kind of birth control are you using? Incision looks like it’s healing properly. Let’s get you up to date on your papsmear (since I opted out of having one during pregnancy) and internal.
However, I did ask him about the pathology results on my placenta. He was pretty vague about it, I’m not sure if he actually remembered (since he didn’t have it with him and probably reviewed it five weeks ago when it came back – I should have asked at my post-op but was deep in my NICU haze and forgot) but he basically said that it was unremarkable other than that it was “a little small for the gestational age” (he said this was what we had expected, but I hadn’t known that) and that it just looked like a placenta that was “done.”
I don’t know if he just said this to justify the early delivery or what. I’m hoping not because I do want to believe that T needed that sort-of-emergency-ish c-section even though I know it doesn’t really matter either way. Based on the evidence at the time he may or may not have been in distress but the only way of knowing for sure was to get him out. The alternative was waiting and seeing and sure everything *might* have turned out okay and I could have gotten further along and possibly had a vag.inal delivery, but on the other hand everything could have gone to shit and I could have ended up with a stillborn baby.
So basically…Not. Worth. It.
The right choice was made regardless, so why did a small part of me hope for some proof that it was, in hindsight, still a necessity?
I guess even though I am mostly at peace with the way things went, and so, so grateful for my healthy little bay sleeping comfortably in his newborn bop.py lounger in front of me, I must admit that part of me is still having trouble letting go of the expectations I had for the end of my pregnancy and how I would bring my little one into the world.
I thought that I didn’t have a whole lot in the way of expectations, and you know, I probably didn’t in the earlier parts of my pregnancy. I pretty much white-knuckled my way through the first trimester, vigorously inspecting my toilet paper during each trip to the restroom, holding my breath before each beta and ultrasound, feeling sick to my stomach every time I felt any kind of wetness *down there* and so on and so forth.
And then during the second trimester I became obsessed with the possibility of early delivery. I begged for cervical checks at every ultrasound, I agonized over whether I was having regular discharge or if my water was leaking (to the point where I made Paul buy pH strips), I had nightmares that I was delivering the baby and in each one of those nightmares I was always exactly as far along as I was in reality.
Those first two trimesters I did not think much about the end of pregnancy and what that would be like – I was focused like a laser on just getting to a point in the pregnancy where I felt like I could breathe. The fact is that point never really came. We bought a onesie and a shirt for T while we were in Hawaii (I was 25 weeks by that point) and we were still questioning ourselves as to whether we should be doing that.
Anyway the point is, it wasn’t until just before things started going downhill that I actually let myself start thinking about the possibility of going into labor on my own and what it would be like. I started to imagine what it would be like to push my baby out (with the full benefit of an epidural!) and snuggle with him on my chest in those first precious moments afterwards. I imagined having him in my room, the three of us living together as a family from the very start.
I’ve already said this but what really makes me sad (well, as “sad” as one can be about a pregnancy that resulted in a healthy little babe) is missing out on those final few weeks of pregnancy. I wanted to be huge, I wanted to savor every last kick and elbow, I guess I just wanted the full experience and it’s sometimes a hard thing to let go of.
I also asked Dr. OB about what he thought my placenta results would mean for a possible future pregnancy. He said that for the most part he would expect things to follow a similar trajectory. I would be monitored in basically the exact same way, seen by all the same doctors on a similar schedule, loads of extra ultrasounds, potentially another fetal ECG if my sjogren’s antibodies are still present, NST’s in the third trimester…He said based on his experience he would guess I could get a bit further in a future pregnancy but there was definitely also a possibility of only making it to the same point as with T, and a smaller chance that it would be even earlier than this time. It’s unlikely that I’m a good candidate for VBAC, not that I’m totally sure I’d want one given the risks, so he said we would most likely schedule a c-section but when it is scheduled for would be up in the air.
It was nice to hear all that, that at least the chances are good that a future pregnancy is likely to at least have the same outcome as this one or perhaps an even “better” outcome (where “better” just means longer pregnancy, closer to or term baby).
Dr. OB said that we should not try again for another year since the body needs time to recover and I do remember reading in my child development course that statistically second children born too close to when the first was born are at a disadvantage since the mother’s body has so recently been depleted of so many nutrients, etc. and has not yet had a chance to replenish.
I don’t think I’m ready anytime soon anyway. After what happened with T, in my ideal world my sjogren’s antibodies would be gone before we start trying again, but we’ll see. Paul says he has no problem doing this all again in nine months. I think he is nuts.
But he really has taken sooo incredibly well to being a dad. He is every bit the amazing papa I thought he would be. it is totally second nature to him. For me? Not as much, but I’m getting there.
Next week Paul goes back to work and I’m terrified. So we’ll be hiring the night nurse tomorrow to start this weekend and hopefully we can keep moving along in this parenthood thing and not screw it up too badly.