So, these are “practice” contractions?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I was in the Navy for a while, and spent most of my service aboard one ship. Privacy was at a premium, so a lot of people would find odd spaces where there really wasn’t much of anything, and spend time there. My spot was in the void just above where the screws were. It was a nice private spot, where most nobody could find me, and I could get some alone time.

It was also a bit loud, while the ship was underway. 27 foot screws turning through the water make a lot of noise. Not least of the sounds is the steady THRUMM of the blade passing through closest approach to the hull.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized that at Ahead 1/3, the normal steaming speed, we were turning 33 SRPM. Times three blades, meant 99 THRUMM per minute. Not entirely outside the realm of possibility for fetal memories. :o

42

Eep! I’m trying not to panic. There seems to be a lot to do before the baby arrives, and tons to adjust to after.

I hope you, Mrs. Small and the Smallest Small are all doing well.

As I understand it, calculating the baby’s “age” in utero is a crap shoot. With our first ultrasound, it was determined that the Mouseling was 8 weeks along. The last ultrasound, I said that she was 26 weeks - using the age from the first ultrasound as a starting point. The measurements the tech took indicated that she was 27 week + a couple of says. There is no way to know for sure, its all an educated guess. (or maybe our baby is in a hurry to come out! :eek: )

Thank you everyone for the advice and information! The descriptions of contractions you have given make more sense than what I’ve been told by the OB or in the class.

43

I’ll pass along my favorite piece of advice that I didn’t get in birthing class. If you get to into a situation where you have to go for the C-section, the baby will be blue. This is OK. It’s just that they’re not squeezed and frightened and pinked up. They’ll come around.

And 8 pounds? Lightweight. Mine were (in order) 10 lbs 10 oz, 8 lbs 14 oz (two weeks early) and 7 lbs (7-weeks early). There were all C-sections because my wife has a funny pelvic tilt and they never descended. My sister did 10 lbs 4 oz naturally, though.

We’ve got big genes in this family.

44

I think you’re right. I know 100% for certain exactly when my last baby was conceived (we were using ovulation tests), but every ultrasound, they “adjusted” the age/due date slightly, according to his measurements.

45

Well…

The end of my labor looked pretty much like that. My epidural wore off, and after hours of pushing and being awake all night, I was in so much pain towards the end and so exhausted that I really was screaming and crying and begging for it to be over. I remember telling the Dr. that I couldn’t do it anymore, and having an argument with her about whether or not I could push anymore! (for the record, apparently I could.) Also yelling at my husband, etc. My friends laugh when I tell about it because I am so not that person in any other situation.

I am actually more apprehensive about birth this time around. The first time I thought “I am good with pain, I have dealt with a lot of pain before and if certain other people I know can get through it, so can I.” This time I am just hoping that the second baby=faster delivery theory is true. I really just don’t want to go through it again. I marvel at women who take any sort of pleasure in the birth process.

I don’t want to worry anyone! My only birth advice is really “anything can happen.” The only good thing is that when it’s over, it is blessedly quick relief, so next time I know that focusing on just pushing that baby out is really the way to go!

Then again, the next time could very well be completely different so even my own experience might not help much or matter.

46

Well, it was way back in 1984 to 1990, and I don’t recall there being any other “system” available. It was either “oh, you’re doing Lamaze?” or, “give yourself up to the tender mercies of the hospital system, who will anesthetize you so you wake up after it’s all over.”

And make Daddy wait out in the waiting room.

If you wanted to have Daddy in the labor and delivery room with you (they didn’t have quote-unquote “birthing rooms”), then the hospital required the both of you to have undergone “Lamaze” classes–it was just known like that, “Lamaze classes”, which meant quote-unquote “natural”, i.e. “non-drugged into unconsciousness” childbirth.

Yes, children, it was still like that, a mere twenty years ago.

Now, when my third was born, in 1990, they did have birthing rooms, so I didn’t have to be moved to a separate delivery room while in the throes of maximum-dilation heavy labor (“just climb over onto this gurney, dear…” Baby monitor wires and IV tubes everywhere, huge laboring pregnant belly, yeah, right, I’ll just climb over onto that gurney…)

But they still required “Lamaze classes”, in our case, a refresher class, before they would allow the Better Half to be in there throughout the entire proceedings with me.

47

Well…yeah, the pushing part can look like that. But let’s not scare MM too much, 'kay? But did you grab your belly dramatically and start howling with the very first contraction, ideally in an elevator full of your coworkers who ran off to boil some water during a power outage? :smiley:

Yep, I had my son in 1993, and it was just like you describe. We took a ridiculous weekend cram course in “natural childbirth” which was pretty useless. I remember the teacher showing us a video, but before she did so, she said, “Now, this video was made in California,” and she rolled her eyes, “You won’t be making this much noise - we don’t do it like that here in the Midwest.” :eek:

Bradley was teaching his method in the mid 60’s, but it didn’t really seem to catch on until the mid 90’s. That’s when I started hearing about it, anyway, after my son was born.

I was pregnant again in 2004, and it was like a different world. My conversation with the midwife (certified nurse practitioner; lay midwives are illegal in IL) went something like:

Me: So, I was wondering if some of my girlfriends could maybe stand in for my husband for a few minutes, like rotating or something so they’re not in the way…
Her: Well, if you want, but there’s plenty of room for everyone.
Me: Oh, well, yeah, but I want like four women.
Her: No problem. Have you thought about water birth?
Me: Well, yeah, but probably just to labor, not for the birth itself.
Her: Really? Well, we’ll just see how you feel then. Water birth is great. Anything else?
Me: Well, I thought maybe, if it isn’t too weird, a CD with some drumming - it really helps me focus.
Her: Do your friends drum? Have them bring their drums. It’s much better than a CD.
Me: :eek:
Her: But the hospital won’t let us have open flame, so no sage or incense. I have a great electric essential oil diffuser, though. Want to pick out some aromatherapy scents?
Me: I love you.
Of course, as it turned out, my dream delivery was not to be - I was emergency c-sectioned way before my due date. But the difference in attitudes and possibilities was just stunning.

48

I remember when my wife was expecting our first child. We went to the class & brought the pillows, etc. While we were practicing the “total relaxation” techniques, I fell asleep. Wife was not happy. I told her I was just a good student.

49

I thought that up to twelve weeks all human fetuses grow at exactly the same rate, making it possible to pin down conception date pretty precisely. That’s what the books I’ve read say, anyway. And saize and growth rate vary past that point.

And that’s why I had three stubborn arguments with my doctor before my first ultrasound, with her insisting that I was (x) weeks pregnant, and me insisting that I was (x-2) weeks, with me saying, “I know my ovulation date, I can tell you when I had sex, and when you’re saying I conceived we had five houseguests and my husband had bronchitis!”

I won at the ultrasound. :smiley:

50

Pregnant sister’s baby is measuring 4 -5 weeks bigger than he should, due to the diabetes. He’s over five pounds and she has seven weeks to go! Due to some serious sexual dysfunction on her husband’s part, she also knows for certain when she got pregnant. I think she wishes she could have some doubt.

51

Well, that’s their hypothesis. Or maybe they vary a little bit in development, and that’s why our “adjustments” are so often needed. Maybe Baby A and Baby B really were conceived at the same time, but since Baby B’s development is a little behind, his age is “adjusted” by a day or two at the ultrasound so he fits the theory. Plus, of course, doctor’s charts still belabor the Day 14 ovulation myth, and are based on your last menstrual period, not when conception occurs. So your first due date is really a wild guess until the ultrasound helps them pin it down better. But yeah, sometimes they’re just plain wrong.

Also, remember that conception doesn’t happen when you have sex. It usually happens several days - up to a week (although that’s unusual) - later. Romantic conception stories of passionate sex on the beach in Bali are nice, but chances are better that the literal conception happened three days later in the elevator on your way to the Monday meeting with your boss.

So I think we’re both wrong sometimes. The doctors aren’t a certain as they like to pretend, but for most people our own recordkeeping can really only show us a window of opportunity, not a precise day of conception. Of course, if you track your ovulation, you can peg it within 24 hours, since that’s how long an egg is viable. But most people don’t - most people look at when they had sex.

52

Hee! One of my clearest memories of both births is how much racket I was making. I decided towards the end of the first one that I was making dinosaur noises - very low, gutteral roars. The second one was just as noisy if not more so, and I was grateful that the baby was born half an hour before the other clients arrived at the birthcenter for childbirth classes. (the birthing rooms are on the main floor and there’s a classroom in the basement) I would have scared them all away! The midwives never minded, as long as I kept the pitch low to keep from tensing up.

The thing about birthing noise is that the yelling is not the “Ouch! I just dropped a brick on my toe holy CRAP that hurt!” yelling, but more of the roar of a weight lifter doing a clean and jerk, or that tennis player that was reprimanded for her grunting. It’s the noise of a whole lotta effort. Making noise felt GOOD. (boy I’m glad I wasn’t in a hospital - there was no one else around to hear me but the midwife and nurse and my husband)

53

We track ovulation, and I think our child was conceived two days after. I know that sperm can be viable as long as a week given absolutely perfect muscosal conditions. The ultrasound agreed with me, and backed up my calculations. I always ovulate later than the 14-day model.

NFP/FAM people tend to have a good idea when their kid got started.

54

Throughout my pregnancy I had horrible dreams all the time that I was being pursued by people trying to kill me or trying to kill my baby. :eek:

55

Yep, I’m not at all surprised you were right and he was wrong. I’m a FAMer, too. My little girl was conceived 6 days after intercourse. “Impossible” according to the textbook, which says up to 4 days given quality cervical fluid. Little do they grasp the power of my fertility! We knew it was a long shot, but we were hoping for a girl, and since it was the first (and only) month we tried, we decided to play long odds on conception to get better odds on female. Worked like a charm.

56

Heh, you’re scared about having your baby? I start my O&G rotation next week…I get to deliver the tricky ones the midwives can’t. Terrified isn’t in it!

Everyday I have more respect for my grandmother- a woman who read Jane Austen during labour “to take my mind off it”, and made my grandfather drive over unpaved roads in the bush when she got to 39 weeks “to speed things up”.

57

One of my nurses told me to be quieter & stop making so much noise. Luckily I was in the middle of pushing so I didn’t have the breath to tell her to f*** herself, but I said it in my inside voice! (I was already cranky because I was having back labour, baby and I were in danger because of my high b.p., and no-one was available to give me an epidural, so … she had a lot of balls to be nagging me about ANYTHING!). My doula and I laughed about it later though …

I am not normally a noisy person, but for me, making noise while I pushed through the contractions helped me somehow, as part of the effort of pushing - it happened naturally and I was too busy at the time to start worrying about other people’s reactions.

58

Slight Hijack - do they normally adjust due to size/measurements? When our doctor picked the day - based on her last remembered regular menstrual cycle - it did not change no matter what. He was rather big, and they told her that the date would stay the same no matter what size he got to, but that it was “that day” and he may be early or late, but it didn’t change?

I thought that sounded really weird. I remember hearing about due dates changing before, but I could be imagining things. I have a million other issues for why we will never use that doctor again (one being that I found her extremely rude, two being that she didn’t seem to make sense all the time)

I just wondered about the date adjustment. (which was kind of answered up-thread. disregard.)

Brendon Small

59

My ultrasound tech mentioned that she was adjusting the due date because of the baby’s size, but to be honest, I don’t know if the doctor “officially” changed the date (I think that’s what you’re asking). The date was only adjusted by 2 days, so I don’t think it mattered in the greater scheme of things. I suppose if it were off by a lot, it would be more important to make a note of it. In your case, it seems kind of strange that it wouldn’t be adjusted, since the conception date was vague, and the baby was big. I was induced 10 days before my due date this time, due to the baby having an irregular heartbeat, and in a case like that, you would think that you would want to have a very good idea of when the date is really supposed to be, for risk assessment purposes.

60

Ah, OB rotation. I’ve worked with med students that were in the U. MD/PhD program. After becoming pregnant, I banned all birth horror stories from the lab.

On guy finished his rotation, then delivered his own kid! :eek: I’m very glad Mouse_Spouse is a computer guy.

You’ve got one tough grandmother. I’m saving to latest Harry Potter for my labor. The Mouseling may not be born until I’m done reading. :smiley: