Our appointment with the midwife went great today. Both the midwife and her apprentice felt around and decided that baby is vertex (head down), which is good to know. His or her little back is sort of off to my right side, so that explains why most of the kicks and jabs are on my left side. I thought it was so cool that they could tell me exactly how he/she is laying in there.

My blood pressure was a bit higher than usual. In fact, it has progressively gone up from about 111/75 on my first visit to 137/79 today. I am going to have to make myself walk every day and watch my fat and salt intake. Well, the midwife didn't say anything about salt, but I know that lots of sodium is not good for BP....and she thinks that the fact that I have been cooking things in butter more often lately might have something to do with it. Blood pressure, you're goin' down!

I just have to vent a little and give my mommy props at the same time. Today when we were driving back from the birth center, I was on my phone talking to someone and they were giving me a hard time about not having that glucose tolerance test dealy where you drink the sugary liquid to find out if you're a gestational diabetic. And DH was on his phone meeting some resistance from someone who was trying to tell us that we should get an ultrasound.

It just irritates the heck out of me that other people think they know what's best for this pregnancy. They have no idea that I have spent hours pouring over articles, forums, and research about pregnancy and birth. I am certainly no expert, but I have weighed the options and I do not take my choices lightly. I guess some people just assume that we are going into this blindly and it is their duty to let us know that we're stupid for not getting all the "routine" tests and procedures that most people under the care of an OB would get. Gggggrrr. It's amazing to me that some women think that because they have experienced birth a couple times, they are total experts on it and whatever happened in their pregnancies is the way things should be for everyone. Okay. End rant.

My mom has never said one single word against the choices DH and I have made about this pregnancy. She has absolutely no knowledge of or experience with natural childbirth, and certainly doesn't know anyone who has given birth outside of a hospital.....yet, she trusts DH and I to make our own decisions. I was afraid when I first told her that we would be using a midwife for prenatal care and having the baby in a free-standing birth center, that she would freak out and think we were crazy. She has done the complete opposite. She seems to embrace our plans to have a relatively low-intervention pregnancy and childbirth and doesn't make me feel stupid or try to be threatening with nay-saying commentary and scary stories. She supports my strong desire to be successful at breastfeeding (and has listened to my long rants about it on more than one occasion) and thinks it's cool that we're going to use cloth diapers. I appreciate all of this more than she will ever know.

On another subject,

I was taking DH to work after the appointment and just about mowed over some pedestrians that I didn't see crossing in front of me. It scared the bejeezus out of them, me, and DH. In my defense, I had a green light and was turning left. I was yielding to the oncoming cars and another pedestrian was crossing the street that I was going to turn onto. I had no reason to look right - I was focused on trying to find a break in the traffic and waiting for the other guy to cross the street to my left. Just as I was about to turn, DH said something to get my attention and I slammed on my breaks and heard the pedestrians scream and saw them jump out of the way out of the corner of my eye. They were super close to the front right corner of my car. I was so shaken and angry. Pedestrians always have the right of way, but for goodness sakes, why on earth would you cross at an intersection that has a GREEN LIGHT in FRONT of a car that is turning left? I have no clue what they were thinking, but I'm so glad I didn't hurt anyone.

I was all moody and emotional about the conversations we had with people questioning our choices regarding the pregnancy. (Even though they weren't really a big deal....my hormones were just magnifying my irritation, I'm sure.) On top of that, I was very hungry and tired from driving for a total of 4 hours. Almost killing a group of idiotic people who have apparently never crossed a city street before was enough to cause my eyes to well up with tears and make me want to crawl in a hole and go to sleep. DH had been light-heartedly poking fun at my driving on the previous day. He said something teasingly about me almost running those people over just before I dropped him off and it just wasn't the time. I'm surprised that my head didn't explode. I ate and took a nap when I got home and felt so much better.

Labels: prenatal appointment