It has been done before by another Doper, in month-by-month installments, but as per the current “Ask the … Doper” thread, **BaconandEggs **wants this… and I want something to pass the time, so voila!
I am 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant today. I’m due on March 17. Have at it…
Congratulations!
Is it your first child? Boy or Girl or Unknown?
How much weight have you gained? My wife gained a whopping 85 pounds with our first, although she lost it all within a few months.
Has the baby dropped yet? Did you have lots of morning sickness? Is this your first baby? Do you know the sex? Have you picked out a name? Are you doing natural childbirth? Are you gonna breastfeed?
sorry, my daughter is pregnant and I’m excited.
Do you feel like a man who built a boat in his basement, and now doesn’t know how he’s gonna get it out?
This is my first child, and conveniently my husband’s first also. It is a girl (yay pink!). We have a name, yes… we had a group of possibilities picked out, and settled on one right after the 20-week ultrasound.
I have gained 56 pounds as of this morning’s weigh-in. I attribute it to inactivity due to wimpiness on my part, greed, and a few weeks of unregulated thyroid function in the first trimester.
Yes, the baby has dropped. She did it somewhere between 35 and 36 weeks. Things get dire when the baby drops… that’s when the swelling starts.
I had very little morning sickness. Mostly, I just had strong opinions about what I did and didn’t want to eat in the first trimester. I quickly learned that nibbling constantly kept queasiness at bay (thus, weight gain!)
I am going to labor without medication as long as I can, but I understand that sometimes it is in everyone’s best interest to take an epidural, and if I do take one I won’t beat myself up for it.
Yes, I do intend to breastfeed, but I don’t intend to fight the baby when she decides she’s done. I don’t want to breastfeed much past her first birthday.
And yes NinetyWt, I totally do. You posted that somewhere else and I’ve been saying it to everybody ever since 
Ha! That’s one of the things I remember most about being pregnant.
Yay! How’s it going? Are you feeling nervous or beyond ready, or a little bit of both? Do you have any plans for parents or relatives coming to stay during the first few weeks to help out? If it’s at all workable, I recommend it. I can’t tell you how helpful it was just to have someone do simple things like prepare meals and snacks, throw in a load of laundry, or just sit with the kiddo while I took a shower.
It’s going well, I guess. I haven’t had any health scares at all. At 36 and 37 weeks my blood pressure was up to 120/80 (from 100/60) and I was spilling a bit of protein, but that had gone away at yesterday’s appointment and my blood pressure is back down. No early induction for meeeeee…
I am beyond ready to stop being pregnant, and a little terrified of being a mom. I have been crying a lot because I love my little girl so much, already. I kind of don’t know what to do with that intensity of emotion. Sometimes I switch things up and cry because I love my husband so much.
We are hoping to be mostly alone with the baby for the first week. Then my husband will have to go back to work, and my parents will come for a week (it’s their first grandchild, not so for my in-laws). Then my mother-in-law will come for a few days. Then, I fly solo while my husband is at work. I know that my m-i-l understands she’s coming to help with housework, I’m not so sure my mom gets it.
My wife and I are coming up to our 20 week ultrasound [ok, *her *ultrasound], and are excited as all get-out to start interviewing midwives and dulas…this is our first baby. She is 34 and the doc said she is just under the “senior” mom threshold…what does that mean exactly and does it affect anything we ought to be doing during the pregnancy?
Phlosphr, all it really means is that you’ve barely escaped a lot of extra testing and worry. Her doctor/midwife would have been more insistent about her having the Quad Screen, the nuchal transparency ultrasound, and possibly an amniocentesis, if she was a year older. You might also have had more trouble finding a midwife/alternative birthing center willing to take you as a patient, because “advanced maternal age” can bump you out of the “uncomplicated pregnancy” category.
Have fun at the 20 week ultrasound–it will be a blast, I promise. They look like real babies at that point, and they’re still small enough that most of them fits on the display. My 36-week ultrasound was no fun at all, we could barely get her knee and foot on the display at the same time.
Wow, thank you! Actually, our insurance allows us to have a midwife present at the Birthing Center - which is basically in the parking lot of the hospital. She cannot deliver, but she can be present. We are just far enough where a home birth is probably not going to happen, but we are fortunate that the birthing center rooms are like small apartments with a main room, a bedroom and tub etc… I think we are getting the Quad screen but not the amnio. Thanks again, and congratulations!
Don’t be afraid about getting an epidural if you need one. With our first child, my wife was so desparate for the epidural she started taking her clothes off in the hallway before we got to her pre-delivery room.
Have they offered/told you about any pain relief other than an epidural or is it only epidural vs. lamaze breathing? I would think that there has to be some third option other than a giant needle in your spine or the heavy breathing but those are the only two I ever hear about.
Hypno-birthing “supposedly” is virtually pain free…supposedly. We have a friend who did it for all three of her children and had great things to say about it.
My understanding was that basically, anything (besides an epidural) that would be strong enough to help would pose a risk to the baby.
There are narcotics they’ll give you, but I’ve never heard anyone who’s had them recommend them. They make you drowsy but don’t really dull the pain, I guess. Also if you take them too soon before giving birth, the baby will be doped up, which leads to breathing and nursing difficulties. They don’t sound like a good option.
Some people try using a TENS unit, but again, I’m dubious about its effectiveness.
If you are having back labor, my hospital will offer you sterile water injections on your back. The nurse uses a syringe and needle to create small blisters of sterile water under the skin on your lower back, and apparently it creates a nerve-feedback loop that is effective at relieving back labor pain. I will totally try that, if I find myself in that situation. It can’t hurt and it might help.
My hospital also offers birthing balls and jacuzzis, which I intend to make full use of (assuming I don’t have an epidural).
At my hospital (Scotland, UK) I got diamorphineand gas & air. They both rocked 
Bubs didn’t seem doped up when she popped out - just furious and ready to feed!
:eek::eek::eek:
Needles freak me out so the concept of epidurals or sterile water injections make me a little ill and the other options don’t really seem like they would be very effective. See, I knew there were reasons why I never wanted to give birth! I think I am going to have my doctor hang a little “No Vacancy” sign inside my uterus or something to stop zygotes from trying to lodge there.
I am watching this thread with a great deal of interest, as I am slightly over seven weeks pregnant today.
One of the beautiful things about pregnancy is that by the time you’re this far along, you really don’t care about little things like that. You just want the baby OUT so that you can start feeling better every day, instead of worse. I understand that labor pains are even more persuasive
Congratulations, Manda JO!