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Week Thirty-Two
Published 08.26.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (15)
Your Baby:
- Is about three pounds, 11 ounces and 16 inches long.
- Is starting to get pretty crowded in there, so you may feel more subtle, rolling-type movements instead of sharp pointy kicks.
You:
- May notice a slight change in your belly shape over the next few weeks -- kind of...downward sloping. Not so much of a nice shelf for your bowl of ice cream as you've had in the past.
- This change also might signal the retirement of some of your maternity clothes and you'll need longer shirts instead of just roomy shirts. I can pretty much guarantee that the shirts that no longer fit will be the cutest ones, dammit.
- STAY HYDRATED. KEEP YOUR FEET ELEVATED WHENEVER POSSIBLE. DON'T MAKE ME STOP THIS BLOG AND COME BACK THERE.
So! We had our first emergency visit to Labor & Delivery this week! Hooray! So glad I was able to check that one off of my to-do list.
I'm now officially 0-for-2 when it comes to Unnecessary Freaking Out Over Nothing Hospital Trips, since I went to Labor & Delivery at 23-ish weeks during my first pregnancy because I was convinced that I was leaking amniotic fluid. Which I was not. Was it mucus? Urine? I don't know. I don't really feel like I need to know. You know?
This time, it was blood and a lot of tenderness in my lower back. And in my head, I knew it was a urinary tract infection. (Pale pink, watery, only present after peeing.) I knew I could most likely wait until my doctor's office opened the next morning and everything would be fine. I had the doppler, I heard the heartbeat, I knew this baby occasionally has a quiet day with no real movement or kicking.
I also knew that if I didn't go to the hospital to get everything checked out, I would be wide awake all night, wracked with worry and fear and guilt and eventually I would probably work myself into a Total Freaking State sometime around 4 am and insist that we go to the hospital Right That Minute, so...in the grand scheme of things it seemed like going to the hospital at 9 pm instead was the SENSIBLE CHOICE.
And you know what? That's always the sensible choice. Don't ever, ever feel silly or foolish for calling your doctor after hours. Don't ever feel like you're inconveniencing anyone when you have even the slightest reason to worry that everything is not okay. I don't care if it's just a hunch or a "bad feeling." That baby is in YOUR BODY and you know best, even if you're just a terrified first-timer who mistakes gas for contractions. Call. Go. Get checked out.
I'm sure the doctors and nurses at L&D have seen it all -- every possible harmless symptom of neurotic paranoia...but also what happens when a mother DOES wait too long to get checked out. Guess which scenario they prefer.
In fact, one of the symptoms on the "Call Your Doctor Immediately, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200" list the hospital discharged me with was, no lie, Complaint of "not feeling well." Well, that's certainly...specific.
And yet...clearly the only way the hospital is able to classify the mysterious yet invaluable diagnostic tool known as "mother's intuition." Yep, you've already got it, mama. Don't ever ignore it.
Oh Yeah, THIS: You know, I've had a lot of UTIs in my day. Dozens. Hundreds. Dozens of hundreds! And yet I've experienced blood in my urine exactly twice. While pregnant, both times. That seems distinctly not-cool to me. Don't I have enough to worry about going on down there?
New This Time Around: Thank God for AZO cranberry tablets
and AZO at-home Urinary Tract Infection Test Strips. The tablets are easier to remember AND choke down than gallon after gallon of cranberry juice, and the test strips at least give me an indication of how my body is fighting off the infection. (Currently: white blood cell count is still SLIGHTLY elevated, indicating things are still a tad inflamed, but the nitrate test is negative for bacteria.) (I'm sorry, did you not WANT to hear about my pee, or something?)
Finished with the Pregnancy Calendar and want more? Visit Amalah's postpartum weekly column, Bounce Back. Bounce Back is about the postpartum experience -- the good, the bad and the gory.
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About this column
Zero to Forty is a week-by-week guide to the miracle of pregnancy and all the various indignities that come with it. The calendar follows the forty-week model and is complete for now, though the author plans to come back and add some more articles soon.
The follow-up to this column, Bounce Back, is about the postpartum experience -- the good, the bad and the gory. There Amalah is covering everything that happens to your body, mind and circadian rhythms after you have a baby, and (hopefully) help you make sense of the New Normal. You must go read that too!
The column is well-researched but not written by a health care professional. Consider it your internet BFF pregnancy guide. See our legal disclaimer below.
About the author
Amy Corbett Storch, aka Amalah, is a freelance writer and professional blogger from Washington, DC. She has since had this baby. His name is Ezra, he was born in October of 2008 and is delicious. Amy's first son Noah is in preschool and he's pretty edible too. NomNomNom.
Amy also writes Alpha Mom's Advice Smackdown.
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The Zero to Forty masthead and illustrations were created by the artist Brenda Ponnay aka Secret Agent Josephine. Brenda is very talented and these images are copyright-protected. You should hire her!
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Comments (15):
Sarah said:
Wait...are you, like, not allowed to take antibiotics? Because you're pregnant?
Ohmahgawdimgonnadie. I'm going to have to use a surrogate. There is no flipping way I'm going to be able to just LIVE with a UTI and try to treat it with cranberry pills. Holy shit. Um, feel better!
Posted on August 27, 2008 08:29
Ulla said:
Sarah, I believe it's because Amy is allergic to a lot of antibiotics.
I know this because apparently I am stalker with very good memory.
Posted on August 27, 2008 10:40
qwyneth said:
Yeah, I wish I'd done this. A couple weeks ago I had FLAMING constipation. It hurt to walk. It hurt to try and go to the bathroom. It hurt to breathe. I hadn't pooped substantively in well over a week and nothing worked--not fiber, not liquids, not stool softeners, not suppositories. My doctor's appointment had been canceled because her father died and she had to go out of the country, and the nurse was being NO help.
The thing was, it didn't hurt in my rectum (like the nurse assumed, whenever she bothered to call me back), it hurt in my abdomen. As it got worse and worse and worse I became convinced I had a severe obstruction or I was in preterm labor. But I was terrifically embarrassed of calling the after hours line over so ridiculous and minor a thing as constipation.
Luckily an enema finally cleared things up and the pain subsided, but hell, I wish I'd not spent that week of awful pain and freaked-outedness.
Posted on August 27, 2008 10:44
obabe said:
you TOTALLY can take (some) anitbiotics when pregnant. i had so many UTIs back to back my first pregnancy that by 15 weeks i was on an anitbiotic once a day for the REST of the pregnancy to ward them off.
UTIs suck.
Posted on August 27, 2008 20:47
Lauren said:
As someone who used to work on the L&D Floor, please don't wait. Yes, the Mom-Who-Freaks-About-Nothing may be slightly annoying, but she is a Million times better then the Mom who's 8 months pregnant, doesn't feel her child move for 3 days, but doesn't call because she didn't want to "be a bother" - your heart breaks when she walks by, crying, hand in her husbands, knowing she's about to spend 15 hours in labor so she can bury her child. DO NOT WAIT. Be a bother, be a royal-pain-in-the-ass, be annoying. Call 50 times a day. Whatever it takes to make sure you'er okay and you're baby is okay. Even the annoyed nurses would rather that then a child in danger.
Posted on August 28, 2008 09:25
Amalah said:
Yes, antibiotics are not much of an option for me, because I am a Freak. Allergic to pretty much ALL the common ones, including ones that generally "work" on UTIs. I took some weird one in the first trimester during my first pregnancy for a UTI, but it was one that isn't recommended for the third trimester.
Most of the time doctors just look at my allergy list and apologize because there's just nothing they feel safe prescribing, unless I'm in the hospital and can take in through an IV while being monitored. (Like after my c-section. They had to special order some super-expensive one from the depths of the hospital pharmacy -- I saw on the insurance forms that it cost over $1000 a bag. Sweet.)
Posted on August 28, 2008 10:20
M said:
Amalah,
I just want to say thank you! I'm currently 17 weeks pregnant, and am suffering from a UTI (I so feel your pain). But that's not even the worst of it- my boyfriend just left for Iraq on Wednesday and won't be back until the end of March/beginning of April. I'm due at the beginning of February and will be all alone.
So thank you for giving me something to read week by week. I've tried reading other pregnancy calendars and they're lame and not funny at all.
I've been a reader of your blog for years!
Posted on August 30, 2008 21:28
charlotte said:
Thanks, Lauren, for that comment! Yeah, I had a scare with high blood pressure just last week and ended up in L&D--and I'm usually the person who doesn't want to be a bother. It took my best friend to convince me to go to the emergency room.
Of course, the only thing the nurses did was lay me down, rehydrate me (I was totally dehydrated) and watch my bp go down slowly again. Still, even when I confessed to my ob/gyn what had happened, he told me I'd done exactly the right thing. Kewl to know that the community is so understanding!
Posted on September 3, 2008 19:39
Breezy said:
I, apparently, am trying to copy Amy in her fears/bleeding/freaking out/ER visits. I was admitted to L & D to be "checked out" and "monitored" at 29 weeks. Yeah, a frickin' yeast infection. I have never had even one until becoming pregnant and both times I had bleeding! AM A FREAK! The doctor and nurse both reassured me that I should always call and that I did the right thing. I enjoyed (har har) a 6 hour stay on a Saturday watching movies and eating hospital food in my backless gown =)
The nurse informed me that I should get used to it, because once baby is born parents inevitably are convinced their kid is sick, complete with fever et al. only to show up at the pediatricians office and the kid is running around like nothing is wrong...the joys of looking like a freak. At least I'm not alone!
Posted on September 24, 2008 16:31
Gem said:
Thank you so much for the advice to call your doctor even if you feel silly doing so. This last Saturday morning I read your 32 week entry and chuckled a couple of times.
That night, I started experiencing some weird menstrual type cramping that I hadn't had before. I felt silly but keeping your column in mind, I called my doctor to ask if it was normal. She said it probably was but I should go to the hospital to get checked out just in case. Well, it turns out I was going into preterm labor. When I got to the hospital I was 2 cm dilated and within an hour I was at 4 cm with contractions 3-5 minutes apart (though it was hard for me to believe because I was in almost no pain). They had to helicopter me to a larger hospital where they succeeded in at least temporarily stopping later. For now, they are keeping me in the hospital on bed rest in hopes that I can keep baby in me a bit longer. I'm still not sure how things will turn out but they definitely would have been worse if I hadn't followed your advice I had read just that morning.
Posted on February 4, 2009 19:26
Margie S. said:
Since I'm reading this so soon after Gem's comment, I can't help but post to say that Gem, I hope your baby is still on the inside! I'm so glad you went in!
I'm at 32 weeks now, but three or four weeks ago I went into L&D because I was having contractions that were too close together and too many in an hour (about eight per hour). I hated going in, and everything turned out to be fine (with a shot of something to make the contractions at least temporarily go away after they monitored me for a while), and now the hubby and I look at it as our trial run : )
Thanks for making me laugh every week, Amy!
Posted on February 10, 2009 08:12
kristanna said:
I've been reading this since I found out i was pregnant this past August. Thank you for posting this particular story. At 33 weeks, I just wasn't feeling right. Tired and sore, but I chalked it up to working full time, baby shower, and third trimester catching up with me. But after a few days of resting on the couch and loading up on water, the feeling did not pass. On a sunday afternoon, we headed to the hospital for a quick check-up with the on-call doctor. Turned out I was in active labor (Like Gem) and 2 cm dialated. IV of magnesium sulfate and full bed rest ordered for a few days, but fetal montitor showed baby was in distress. They decided to induce by Wednesday and I went back into active labor a few hours later. Thursday morning doctor broke my water and while trying to deliver, baby's heart rate kept dipping. Turns out the umbilical cord was wrapped 2x around my daughter's neck and that is what prompted me into preterm labor. She was born with the help of an episotomy and the doctor removing the cord before I could finish pushing her out. Thank god, health baby girl, almost 5 pounds, fully developed lungs. She is now 5 weeks old and doing very, very well at home after just 5 days in NICU. Had I not read your story and Lauren's comment, I don't know if it would have turned out so well.
_________
Editor: Kristanna, thank you so much for sharing and we are beyond thrilled that your baby girl is healthy and doing well!
Posted on March 27, 2009 01:37
Mel said:
Yikesie - Lauren your comment was clearly a lifesaver for Kristanna and I know there are others out there who will not think twice if they are not feeling well and call their doctor. Better to be annoying than to be in mourning...
Posted on April 20, 2009 09:42
Tiffany said:
I am a labor and delivery RN and agree please just come to the hospital or better yet call the hospital first and maybe I can reassure you or at least recommend that you come in for a check so you don't feel so "crazy". The patients who upset me the most are not so much the ones that come in with vague complaints and I end up finding nothing wrong its the ones whom Lauren described. I would much rather check you out at 3am then have anything happen to you or your baby, period. If you don't want to talk to me I urge you to page your doctor that's what they get paid the big bucks for so go ahead and if it can't wait until morning just call ALWAYS better to be safe than sorry. Listen to your intuition, ladies I have seen it literally save lives!
ps. this is my first pregnancy and so now i have more empathy for those middle of the night panicked visits and phone calls because until this baby I would have never have guessed round ligament pain could be that PAINFUL, as in ohmygod I have been stabbed with a knife in my groin! One final thought just remember most of us L&D nurses are mom's ourselves so take some comfort in knowing that we totally understand because we have been there!!!
Take care and best wishes for happy healthy pregnancies and deliveries!
Posted on June 26, 2009 09:32
Ashley said:
Tiffany - I have to say, I agree %100 on the round ligament pain. I mean, WHO KNEW??? I thought I had a kidney infection or something equally as weird with the sharp, one sided, knock the wind out of me pain that I was having one night. A trip to the ER told me that hey, it was round ligament pain... I felt like an idiot, but honestly... at least at 28 weeks it wasn't anything more serious. Now I know what it is and just wait for it to pass or take a tylenol. But honestly, this pregnancy thing can be a total mindf***. :-)
Posted on July 22, 2009 13:07