Yesterday afternoon I had what was really, I guess, more like my 21-week appointment with the midwife (I'm 21 weeks today). This was my second appointment with Margaret, and I still just love her. Basically the appointment started out as usual... peed in a cup (everything is fine), the nurse took my blood pressure (was great), and weighed in (I gained four pounds since my last visit). I then went into the examination room and waited for Margaret. She went over my chart to try to catch herself up with where things stood, and she said the ultrasound looked good and that it matched up almost perfectly to the dates they had decided on, so we're sticking with a September 9 due date (of course, the baby will still come when it wants to come). She also said that the placenta is situated at the front rather than the back, and I asked her if that is good, bad, or indifferent, and she said that it didn't matter one way or the other. However, when she went to listen for the baby's heartbeat, she made the comment that we were actually hearing how it sounded through the placenta. Also, she could apparently tell it was a girl just by listening to the heart (I guess girls tend to have higher heart rates than boys).
A kind of surprising piece of information came out, which is that beginning September 1 (perfect timing... geez),
North Pointe OB/GYN is going to deliver babies at
Northside Hospital–Forsyth instead of
North Fulton Regional, which is where we were planning to deliver. Apparently they are opening a brand new Women's Center at Northside this fall, which sounds lovely, but new shiny features are not what led me to choose the hospital I did. I chose North Fulton because I really want to try to have a water birth, and North Fulton is the only hospital in the Atlanta area that offers this option. Margaret said that this new Women's Center is supposed to have jacuzzi tubs in all labor and delivery rooms, but she is not convinced at all that they are going to allow water births (crazy people). Anyway, Margaret said (in a hushed undertone) that she is
not going to deliver at Northside -- that she only wants to deliver at North Fulton. This means that she is likely going to leave the North Pointe OB/GYN practice sometime in the near future. Because Margaret is a rather well-known midwife around this area, she says that this information will be posted all over the Web on local childbirth sites, so she said to search for her when this actually happens and have my records transferred to wherever she sets up practice (she doesn't think that her current practice will post this information since they probably don't want to lose clients). In one way I see this as a good thing -- maybe there is a chance she'll be out on her own for awhile and I'd be certain to have her around during the delivery of our little one. But this is also an added stress that I wasn't anticipating. I guess we'll just hope and pray that it all works out.
On my next visit I have to do a glucose screening test for gestational diabetes, so they gave me a bottle of what is apparently a sickly sweet orange glucose drink that I have to consume about 30 minutes prior to my next appointment. About an hour after I finish, they will draw blood for the test. Gestational diabetes is apparently fairly rare, but also shows few symptoms and can be harmful to the baby if not diagnosed properly, so they test all women who come through the practice. We still don't know if Jarrett's blood type is positive or negative, but Margaret said if he is able to come in to my next appointment, they would draw his blood and let us know his blood type. If he's negative, I won't have to get that shot I talked about
earlier; if he's positive, I'll probably have to have that soon.
In other baby-related news, we went to a
Better Birth Foundation infant safety and CPR class on Saturday morning. A lot of the safety information was common sense knowledge, but we did learn a number of things, and it was great to get a refresher course on infant choking and CPR. Overall, it was a very worthwhile class. Also, on Sunday, since it was a rather wet and dreary afternoon, we decided to go to
Babies R Us and register. We probably spent about two hours in the store looking at all of the options available, which can be quite overwhelming. We had fun, though, despite being completely exhausted afterward. So we are now registered there, at
Wildflower Diapers, and at
Pottery Barn Kids. Fun, fun!
