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Week Thirty-Four
Published 09.09.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (10)
Your Baby:
- Weighs as much as your average cantaloupe (4.75 pounds-ish) and is almost 18 inches long.
- Reaching the 34-week mark is a big milestone for anyone concerned about pre-term labor, as babies born at this stage usually do just fine (provided they're otherwise healthy). Other than a slightly longer stay at the hospital, they generally don't experience any of the long-term health problems that prematurity can cause.
- That said, don't let your baby go and get any big ideas about escaping just yet. More baby fat and a few more weeks of lung maturity will still make everybody's lives easier.
You:
- Fatigue, heartburn, nausea, frequent trips to the bathroom. It's like the Return of the First Trimester, only much bigger and rounder and gruntier.
- Don't forget to do your Kegel exercises, not only in preparation for childbirth but also to stop the unfortunate peeing-when-you-laugh-or-sneeze phenomenon, which can get pretty out of hand in these final weeks.
- SO NOT KIDDING ABOUT THAT.
The Birth Plan
So. Does everyone have their Birth Plan written up yet? Have you typed it? Double-spaced it? Printed up back-up copies and filed one with the county courthouse and gotten one notarized?
Yes, I am a little bit snarky when it comes to the Birth Plan.
Not that I don't understand and agree with the logic behind a detailed Birth Plan -- I'm all for removing the fear from childbirth, for helping mothers feel empowered and in control of their bodies and the entire situation, and for doctors respecting their patients' desires to go natural or stay upright and out of bed or have immediate post-delivery skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding or whatever the hell they want. All for all of that.
It's just that I've also seen the Birth Plan morph into something terrifyingly inflexible -- more like a woman trying to choreograph the birth down to the right song playing on the iPod. These ultra-detailed plans, with their high expectations and hopes for everything going so incredibly perfectly, sometimes seem more like the mother-to-be is trying to obsessively checklist her fears away rather than work through them with her midwife or doctor, or perhaps confront her instincts that her OB is not the sort who will respect even the most basic of her wishes. And even worse, anything that deviates from the Birth Plan will often get classified as failure.
Look, they don't give out medals in the maternity ward. There's no I Avoided The Episiotomy wall of fame bulletin board and they don't put little stickers on the babies' foreheads to distinguish whose mother had an epidural or not. (Although I do remember seeing a sticker on Noah's bassinet chart that read "I'm a breastfed boy!", but somehow I doubt the bottle-fed babies' stickers featured frowny judgement faces, or anything.)
Obviously, birth choices are personal. And important, to a degree. We all have our preferences and images of how we'd like childbirth to happen -- hospital, home, birthing center, water, dolphins, whatever. And you absolutely should voice your wishes and concerns with everyone involved in the experience. But like motherhood, childbirth requires a certain acceptance that you cannot control every aspect of it, and that sometimes you simply must stop and reassess things. Be it your own tolerance for pain or your baby's well-being. And you need to be able to reassess these things without feeling like you...gag...FAILED. Seriously, THEY DON'T GIVE YOU GRADES.
If you had asked me for a birth plan before my son was born, I would have probably started AND finished it with the epidural. I was certain I'd want it right away. I did not want to be miserable and in pain. Oh, that and breastfeeding as soon as possible. And I was pretty terrified of c-sections. So...let's try to avoid one of those.
Then I went into labor and discovered that I could handle the contractions after all, and that I found the whole thing incredibly amazing and empowering. I started thinking of going all the way unmedicated, but changed my mind at the very last minute (9 centimeters), when it was confirmed that the baby was badly positioned (occiput posterior), fairly large (macrosomia) and very, very high up in my abdomen. Lots of pushing in my future. I needed some rest.
So I reversed courses AGAIN and got the epidural after all and fell asleep for a little bit. Then I woke up and pushed and pushed, until alarms started going off and the baby wouldn't budge any further down the birth canal and his heartrate started to plummet with each contraction. Time to reassess again. C-section time.
As I breastfed my 9 pound, 15 ounce son for the first time in the recovery area, I did have a few minutes when I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. My childbirth experience was nothing like I had expected or planned for. When I tell the story to other women, it almost sounds like a worst-case scenario to them. But it really wasn't. It was amazing. I'm completely happy and at peace with how it went and how it ended. I did what I could. I experienced everything I really wanted to, but in the end, it was never about me and what kind of transcendent empowering experience I wanted. It was about a safe delivery of a healthy baby, full stop. And I got that. Oh, yes, I got that.
Oh Yeah, THIS: I'm done. I'm SO READY TO BE DONE. A few weeks ago the thought of being "done" was terrifying -- my due date was approaching much too quickly for my taste. I wasn't ready. I needed more time, GAH. I couldn't imagine feeling impatient and swore I would treasure every day of pregnancy because hoo boy, SO NOT READY TO BE DONE. And now I'm big and uncomfortable and awkward and just...just...DONE. Let's have a baby already!
New This Time Around: Oy, the heartburn. Nausea. Food aversions. All back in full force. If this keeps up until my due date, I'll have had exactly three months of NOT throwing up or suffering major gastrointestinal problems throughout the entire pregnancy. That is backwards as hell, and I would like to officially file a complaint with someone.
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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. New installments will be published on Wednesdays, with other pregnancy-related content and ramblings to be published whenever the columnist can stay awake long enough to type themzzzzzz.
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 is currently knocked up with her second child, due in October. Her first child is still currently wearing diapers. Amy is currently wondering what she has gotten herself into now.
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 (10):
Katelin said:
Thank you for writing one of the first real things about a birth plan. I was one that semi-micromanaged my birth. Not a single thing happened that was on my birth plan and after all that I had read and was told, I felt like a miserable failure. It took me a while (yay, severe post-partum depression) to realise the fact that I had my baby and she was utterly perfect was all that mattered.
Thank you again. I hope your own experience and the wonderful way in which you put it into words will help some future mom not feel like shit when it all goes to the ducks.
You rock.
Posted on September 10, 2008 06:39
Hilary said:
I wonder how many non-pregnant women read this because I have enjoyed every week of it. :) Also, this seems TOTALLY real to me, this "Birth Plans kind of not always 100% happen that way" kind of deal. You have eased a lot of my fears for what I hope to one day experience. Thanks!
Posted on September 10, 2008 11:07
Arwen said:
I didn't have a birth plan, aside from a general wish to avoid interventions as much as possible. Due to some minor complications (including delivering at a completely different hospital than I'd planned) I ended up with IV fluids, constant monitoring, and an episiotomy - all things that would have been on my "I'd rather not" list. Still, I felt good about my birth, and I'm not sure if it's because I did get what I really wanted (to avoid a c-section) or because I understood all the interventions I had and accepted them as necessary.
At any rate, it seems to me that you've hit on something with your comment about women possibly making ultra-detailed birth plans because they're afraid their doctors won't respect their wishes. On that front, it seems like the solution is to find a caregiver who's on the same page as you are. (Even though I was happy with my birth last time, I'm going with a midwife instead of an OB this time around because of my natural-birth preferences.) I highly recommend Moxie's piece on Ask Moxie about how to have a good birth (www.askmoxie.org/2006/02/preventing_ppd__1.html) - she covers this stuff and makes some really good points, I think.
Posted on September 10, 2008 11:12
Amy in StL said:
Okay, I'm not pregnant but I've been glued to every week of this. It's funny and insightful. Plus, someday when I am pregnant it'll be good to remember some of this so I don't think I'm the only one.
Posted on September 10, 2008 11:43
Ruth said:
Ooh, thanks for that link, Arwen. I love Moxie, but I don't remember having read that post. I think Moxie's point about a good birth being one in which you feel respected as a person is important. Clearly, Amy, you felt respected and affirmed in Noah's birth, regardless of the fact that it wasn't as you had imagined it would be. (And not so much with the affirmed and respected in the post-birth lactation consultant phase, if I remember your experience correctly.) It is when people lose sight of this right of the mother for respect and when they insist that as long as the baby lives and is healthy, that is all that matters that I get upset. How the mother feels matters too. I am due to give birth in late November, and I know that I can't control how the process unfolds, but it is very important to me that I feel respected as a human being during that unfolding.
Posted on September 10, 2008 12:14
Kelly said:
I am not a mother and have never been pregnant, but I read this every week. Amalah cracks me up to no end, plus she talks about the real and not-so-glamorous things about pregnancy that no one else wants to talk about. I work on a Mother/Infant unit, where I interact with antepartum and postpartum women. It is nice to hear someone say that it is ok for things to go differently than originally planned during birth. I can't tell you how many times I have been with a patient and her partner, where they cry and cry, wondering where they went wrong, why their birth plan was changed, etc. I wish that more women would understand that, although there is nothing wrong with having a birth plan, labor is one of those things we can't control. All you can do is roll with the punches and accept how things progress. Amalah said it best - the goal and the "best" outcome should be a healthy baby. I can't see how a woman has "failed" if she successfully brought a healthy baby into the world, no matter how he/she was delivered!
Posted on September 10, 2008 15:17
Mouse said:
I'm another who had to make peace with a wildly different birth than planned. I was sure I didn't want an epidural and told my OB; the best thing she said to me was, "Just keep in mind that sometimes plans have to change, so don't completely exclude the possibility in your mind." She wasn't dismissive of my desires, just injected a little realism. Good thing she did--I wasn't progressing and was headed towards 24 hours after my waters broke, so they were talking about c-section. Since I knew (shout out for pre-natal education!) that I would end up with a spinal if I didn't already have an epidural, I asked for the latter. In the end, I started to progress after the epidural and my son was born, with the help of forceps, a few hours later.
Posted on September 10, 2008 16:54
Tara said:
Looks like someone read the Girlfriend's Guide. I have to tell you, I am 34w as well, and I have really enjoyed having you along for this ride with me. Let me take this opportunity to say thanks for the laughs!!!
XXX!!!
Tara
Posted on September 10, 2008 19:44
psumommy said:
Something else that's never talked about is women who fully intend on having an epidural and never even consider the possibility that they might give birth drug free...not common, surely, but still. Definitely something I'd never thought about until my neighbor, who volunteers at a clinic, said something to me about it the other day. She had to deal with 3 women who had never even considered that they might not get what they wanted, and so entered into a drug-free birth completely unprepared and terrified- which makes for a *horrible* birth experience.
Just thought I'd throw that out there since you're talking about birth plans this time!
Posted on September 13, 2008 01:15
Binary Blonde said:
I am pregnant (34 weeks this Friday) with my first baby (it's a boy) and read this every week. I find it incredibly helpful, especially because she expresses humor with all the not-so-fun things about pregnancy. In the end, that amounts for a lot in my book!
I love this weeks a whole lot because I am facing a c-section if my boy doesn't turn around before 39 weeks. Seeing as I am birthing with midwives at a birthing center, a c-section is not something I want.. AT ALL. But, I've come to accept that if it was meant to be that way, then I should just relax and accept it. :)
This weeks post really made it all seem okay, no matter what the outcome. So, thanks!
Posted on September 17, 2008 13:19