babyblog

Tabitha Lily Jones

Announcing the arrival of our beautiful little girl - Tabitha Lily Jones!

She was born at 9.27am this morning by scheduled c-section. She weighs in at what seems to us after 2 enormous boys, a tiny weeny 7lb and 8oz, and measures 20.5 inches long :-)

She's currently in the NICU because of fluid on the lungs and I'm desperate for her to come back, so send positive vibes please everyone! Otherwise she's gorgeous, healthy, and already adored...... even by her two big brothers :)

Birth story to follow when I'm less off my head on Dilaudid.

*Yawn*

I'm having a baby TOMORROW. I'm awake with the dawn, nervous! Cross your fingers for us that everything goes really well!

I suppose I can't delay packing my hospital bag any more, I really must do it today.

My family have arrived, yay. Harry was hilarious yesterday...... as soon as he saw his Grandad first thing in the morning he was enraptured, would not leave his side., demanded Grandad take him to the loo, get dressed, everything, I simply would NOT do and was refused all manner of hugs, cuddles and communication all day!

I was so relieved ..... having never left him before and being that he only sees family infrequently I have been so worried about how he'd react but you'd think they were separated at birth, the two of them, they were completely inseparable. That is, until Auntie Sally arrived.

We picked up my Sis & Steve at the ferry terminal and the second she got in to the car Harry dropped Grandad like a hot potato and is now Sally's shadow instead, lol. Totally fickle. Although he did allow Grandad to put him to bed, so huge enormous relief on all fronts :)

Dylan is also thrilled by everyone's presence. He's demanding that people play Chess with him every second of the day - something he's been learning the last couple of weeks. He's also really happy to sit and talk to everyone and seems to be totally contented with their being here. Yay.

So now I have the day to mentally prepare myself for tomorrow (and pack) and I'm somewhat terrified by the whole thing but fingers crossed all goes well...... it's hard to believe that tomorrow we'll have another little person in the family and that tonight is potentially my last night of decent sleep for the forseeable future!

Owww

After a pretty busy weekend the amount of pain I'm in has increased no end. By the end of the day I just can't walk, it hurts too much. The pain starts around mid-day and gets worse and worse. Thank goodness there's not long to go, I'm practically crippled and it REALLY REALLY HURTS.

I think my body has psychologically done something today too... I know that Dad arrives this evening so there is someone here who can look after the boys......therefore my body is saying OK, it would be OK to have this baby now....... and consequently given me bugger loads of really painful contractions all day long. Owwww.

Dylan finished school today - 2 entire months off plus change from school! We celebrated by going to get his and his bro's hair cut... so they are now nicely shorn for the summer... followed by a coffee and playing in the "sensory garden" in the town center.

I then had to drop off the car to get the brakes looked at. G is apparently unhappy at the thought of my sister driving it as the brakes aren't great. Never mind the fact that his heavily pregnant wife and children drive in it every day! Anyway it should be fixed by 5pm so that I can go to the airport to get Dad later.

Anyway - the boys have now gone downstairs to the playroom which might mean I get 30 mins to myself before Harry reappears.... so I am going to take advantage of it and lie down on the sofa. Only trouble will be getting up again!

PS 3 DAYS TO GO.

More Potty Success

Harry recently developed an aversion to peeing in public toilets, restaurants, basically anywhere except at home on the potty. Going out has been challenging and tiring because he'll ask to go to the loo, I'll take him, then he'll refuse to go, and this will repeat 10 times over.

Gareth took Harry up to Dylans school yesterday because they had an end of year party for a couple of hours during the day. Sure enough while there Harry asked to go to the loo and after 4 trips G was fed up, and had the bright idea to suggest Harry might like to pee 'standing up' at the big loo? Well, bloody miracle of miracles, he was thrilled with this plan, and he did so quite happily. And since then has done every wee standing at the loo like a v big boy. I seem to remember it took Dylan nearly a year or so to convince to stand up to pee so I'm very amazed by this!

Meanwhile, I'm exhausted. I went out for dinner with friends last night and had 2 diet cokes, the caffeine in which sent my heart rate racing all night and I couldn't sleep, the baby was trying out for olympic gymnastics all night in my stomach, and G was snoring like a train....... so I think I had maybe 2 hours sleep in total.

Relief - mostly!

Yesterday I went for my pre-op appointment at the OB and was, as usual, kept waiting for an hour. When she came into see me she basically talked me through the c-section process (nothing new to me). I asked her about getting out of bed and established it would happen that day (good for clotting reasons) and then we began to talk about anticoagulation.

Obviously when I had Dylan I had a pulmonary embolism and that's what we need to avoid again. I take currently anticoagulants to keep my blood thin, and I will again after the birth. The problem is the surgery itself is the high risk period, and you can't be anticoagulated during it or immediately after it because of the risk of bleeding, so you end up playing the odds and hoping that you get it right.

When I had Harry, they had me on a drug called Fragmin which is a Low Mollecular Weight Heparin, it stays in the system 24 hours, and I was on a low dose before the birth, stopped 24 hours ahead of surgery, and then started again 12 hours after. 24 hours after they upped the dose to a large dose.

This time, I've been on Lovenox, which is a similar drug to Fragmin, but they had me stop it a couple of weeks ago in favour of 'regular' Heparin. You can't take regular Heparin for too long as it fucks your bone density up amongst other things, but the benefit of it is that it is reversible and it lasts only 12 hours in the system - so this is preferable for pregnant women at the end of pregnancy.

The plan they had for me was to continue the Heparin until the night before the surgery, then have the surgery, make sure I get out of bed ASAP, use antihrombophilia stockings while in bed, then start on Heparin again the evening folloiwng the surgery for 36 hours, at which point I go back onto the previous low dose of Lovenox. With me so far?

Yesterday I expressed some concern to the OB that the dose of Lovenox was nothing like as high as that I'd taken of Fragmin, and when I'd taken Fragmin I"d not had a pulmonary embolism so could we discuss because I'm nervous of making sure we avoid one again. She ended up calling the pharmacy and getting all the equivalents so that we could figure it out, and she came back and told me ok, the dose I am meant to be on (60mg) is low, the max dose for me is 200mg, so we could do 200 or 150......... but that both of those are a little higher than the Fragmin was, so obviously the risk of bleeding for me is higher again. I suggested how about we compromise and do 100mg, and she agreed. So that's the plan. But now I'm fretting a bit because to be honest what the fuck do I know about this and she's allowing me to self medicate?

Then what wound me up was that she was still dithering over the date for the c-section. For ages it has been set to Thursday 28th June at 5pm but the other week she told me she wanted to change that because she had her kids birthday party (!!) . She told me they'd try for Thursday at 9am instead, which would be OK with me, but you can only find out a week before. Anyway then yesterday she tried to bullshit me saying she had a 'important engagement' (obviously forgetting she had told me the real reason) and that it absolutely could not be at 5pm and that she was also looking to different dates now too. This really wound me up esp. as Dad & Sal are coming over specifically to look after the boys, and booked their tickets around this date....... and to be honest the longer Harry gets with them before I go into hospital the better because he has to get used to them before being abandoned by his parents for 2-3 days, and if they were to move the date forward he'd have very little time to do that!

I left, frustrated, and had to go to the lab to get blood work done where this rubbish phlebotomist stabbed me multiple times in veins I told her never worked before finally getting the right one, so of course now my arm is covered in bruises.

Anyway - this afternoon I had a call from the OB and she has confirmed that we have been assigned the 9am slot on Thurs 28th so we are definite and a go for then, and I'm much relieved!!

Now just have the blood clots to worry about and the health of the baby which has started to plague me with concern the nearer we get, will she be OK, etc.......!!

And another

I determined, yesterday morning, that I would be more positive. Things went a bit downhill from there, basically because of Harry's appalling mood which I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to deal with.

He had woken multiple times the night before and was tired and grouchy, fighting me on everything. He has an aversion to getting dressed too so by the time I attempted to get him into his clothes he just went ballistic and started kicking and punching me and screaming - including a good blow to the stomach. I totally lost it and smacked his bum (bad me) and took him to his bedroom and shut the door. I left, cried, went back 5 mins later feeling like a heel and found him fast asleep in bed. Of course then I felt even worse!

He woke 2 hours later and his mood wasn't much improved. We had another fight over putting shoes on, over going to the potty, over food, over drink, you name it. All in all it was a bloody hard day!!

Hoping today will improve - lol. Got a hospital appointment at noon, a 'pre-op' appointment, whatever that means. Then taking the monsters to the park later where hopefully they'll expend some energy.....although lately my experience usually entails taking Harry to the loo 1500 times where he refuses to wee, and then having to lift him (heavy) into the swing and push him for 2 hours or he goes mad, and I come home absolutely dead on my feet.

Crap

Being really big, really uncomfortable, really exhausted, really in pain, does not = feeling really good emotionally. I feel really blue right now. I'm wrestling with a ton of demons and scared of the impending birth.

Whatever I'm doing to prepare for the baby I have a voice in my head saying it won't be appropriate, my baby will hate it / me, I won't be a good mother, I'll deserve it if the baby is difficult, and all this other horrible negative stuff.

And last night I dreamt that my house tried to kill me by imprisoning me in it, then had a 2nd dream that a vicar came around trying to convert me and when I told him I was agnostic or atheist I hadn't decided, he said I should DIE.

Pass the Prozac?

More of the same

More sorting. More building stupid train tracks. We did manage to build the Bugaboo stroller at least... and I did a few more bits of baby laundry. She certainly isn't going to want for clothes, this little girl. My friends have given me tons of stuff, and various family members have sent lovely outfits too.

I feel like we're on the final countdown towards the baby coming now... at last. Just this week to get through before Dad and Sal start to arrive. Can't go anywhere without being asked 'you must be about to pop?' or 'is it twins?' (grrr) and most of my friends and family are calling to see how I'm doing and wish me luck:) Even people I don't know too well like parents of Dylans friends are offering help if I want it, so nice.

So - getting through this week is really the final 'hurdle' really. Should find out on Weds if they are going to bump the C/S appointment time up to 9am as opposed to 5pm. I could care less really..... but it'd be nice to know for sure of course. Obviously if we get the 5pm slot none of you Brits are going to get phone calls to announce the birth though! Oh well the hospital has WiFi so you can check your email when you get up instead :-)

37 Weeks

Congratulations! Your pregnancy is now considered full-term: Your baby is developmentally ready to handle life outside the womb. He probably weighs a little over 6 pounds and measures between 19 and 20 inches.

Yay. About right too. Had an OB checkup on Friday and I haven't gained any weight - infact have lost 2lb since last week - hurrah. Discomfort levels are at new dizzy heights though. After all the bending and stooping down cleaning up poo and wee and vomit all week my back and pelvis are so bad that I can barely walk.

Since cutting in half the beta blockers, my heart rate is up and my BP is slightly up. I feel more agitated and I'm not sleeping so well. Nearly back to how I was before I started taking them. I have to cut out the other half this week and I imagine these symptoms will worsen more. The joys.

Dylan seems better. His rash has gone. He managed to go to a birthday party today and his fever hasn't spiked again. His only thing today has been to be convinced that someone is going to break into the house and strangle him. I have no idea why or where he's got this from but we've had a big chat about the likelihood of this being zero to none, the fact that people who break into houses tend normally to be opportunist thieves, and the fact that we do also have an alarm system which will scare off any of those if they did come anyway, which of course they won't because there are far bigger and better areas to burgle than where we live, plus there is hardly any crime rate here anyway. He seems reassured, although he then started on about monsters that come out when his lights are off. I suspect this is all his mind acting out a little with the forthcoming change of having a new baby.

Harry also seems a little better, touch wood he hasn't exploded today. Last night was interesting - he woke up at midnight screaming blue murder. G ran in to him and he sobbed ' I WEED MY TROUSERS'. He had a nappy on so he hadn't wet the trousers, but we realised that he hasn't had a night time accident pretty much since we started potty training him.... he is bone dry every morning. He has woken and asked to pee a few times, but the nappy is dry every morning and has been for weeks.

Last night I'd given him some medicine to get him off to sleep and relieve any discomfort he was feeling in the nether regions, and it'd obviously had him sleeping a little more soundly than usual so he had wet the nappy , but then woken extremely distressed about it. Anyway, the point being that aside from last night he has 100% night time trained himself and we hadn't even noticed. I hadn't wanted to bother with it really, the thought of changing bed linen at 3am while heavily pregnant or having to wake up any extra times with a newborn here waking me enough wasn't attractive so we've just been putting him in the nappy....but I guess wasting money seeing as he's never wet them once!

If you're surprised I hadn't realised this and am a neglectful mother - the reason is that G is nearly always the one who gets up and gets Harry onto the potty in the morning. He hadn't bothered to tell me that every morning nappy is dry.

Anyway - we have another weekend of getting this house more prepared for visitors and babies. Today we did a couple of chores but for some reason spent most of it building a train table track for Harry that can be permanently glued down (otherwise the second you build it he trashes it). We (G) did however also manage to put 2 blinds up, clean the stairs carpet, change some light bulbs and tidy up the playroom again. Tomorrow will be more of the same - what fun. Got to tidy up outside too, it looks a fright. Not sure why babies need all this doing to a house as it goes - they do though. G has drawn the line at emptying kitchen cupboards for some reason - he thinks the baby won't mind. I am stressed about this and think that they do infact need emptying!

Fathers Day tomorrow. I hope this doesn't mean that I have to get up early with the kids and leave him in bed all morning.

More illness fun

So then this afternoon Dylan develops a rash all over his feet. Harry is still exploding out of various orifices. I still feel very cruddy. G is complaining of feeling more sick than anyone ever felt in true man fashion......

I take Dylan down to the Pediatrician because of the rash, and it turns out we all have a variant of Enterovirus - the Hand Foot and Mouth variant, which often causes the rash but not always..... in some cases it comes out rashy (Dylan), in some cases it comes out as a stomach bug (Harry) and in others as a fever / cold (me & G).

Dylan asked the DR if he could still go to the school carnival this evening and she was very reluctant to allow him because he's still contagious. She told him she'd take his temperature and see if if it was elevated, if it wasn't he could go. Of course it WAS elevated... so he then started to cry, and eventually she said he could go for half an hour if he promised not to kiss or hug anyone.

Oh the joys.......TFI Friday.

It got better... NOT

After writing yesterdays entry, Harry continued to explode all over the house. I spent the next 3 hours cleaning up shit from everywhere you can imagine. He had 3 showers to hose him down. My back and pelvis were so sore I could barely walk from all the stooping and lifting by about 5pm.

G finally arrived home at 5 and announced he needed a lie down. I THINK NOT.

Dylans fever spiked up again and we had to battle to get some medicine in him because he was almost delirious.

Then Harry decided to throw up EVERYWHERE..... all over the couch, himself, me, his dad, the floor, you name it. We got him cleaned up and he fell asleep in my arms while standing up, he was obviously so drained. Managed to get him into bed despite him stirring a couple of times sobbing I WANT MY MUMMY.... awwwww.

Exhausted, in agony, I then did the only thing I possibly could...... went to the pub.

The best laid plans..

So about a week ago I booked Harry into the daycare for the morning, today. I don't often do this and I planned a morning of rest for myself - much much needed especially after illness. Have been looking forward to it all week.

Didn't happen.

First off, Dylan wakes with a fever and can't go to school.

Gareth takes Harry to the daycare anyway so I only have the one of them to look after. At the appropriate time we go to fetch Harry and find him wearing a nappy and a painting apron. He'd wet himself through the 3 changes of clothes I sent (he NEVER has accidents!).

We attempted to walk 3 paces behind him as we left as he looked extremely disreputable and we were embarassed,lol.

When we got home I got him cleaned up and sent him down to the playroom with Dylan. 5 minutes later he reappeared shouting MUMMY!! POO!! and I discovered he'd had a major diarrhea explosion - trailing the stuff all the way along the downstairs hall, up the stairs, along the upstairs hall, and omg, it was EVERYWHERE.

And all this before 2.30.

Rang G to tell him and he's not feeling great, so now I'll have a few days of 'man flu' to deal with too no doubt!

It goes without saying..

That as soon as I turn a corner with this bug, Harry comes down with it.

Congrats Graham!!

Graham (or, more accurately, his wife Carolyne) had a baby boy - Lachlan Alexander Forbes Nicol today - :-) Congratulations !!

Still ill

Imagine being drained of every ounce of energy, having no strength to hoist your enormous body around, being in pain with every move, and then on top of that to get a stinking cold with a fever. Welcome to my world.

Thankfully G is able to help out a bit - he's come home early the last two days and I've been able to go and rest. Rest seems to be about the only thing that helps.

My mood is brilliant, as you can imagine.

I also have to worry about Fathers Day being this weekend. And G's birthday the weekend after. How am I supposed to find the energy / strength to go shopping - I'm stressing!!

Ill

I'm not well. Woke up again with throat so swollen I couldn't swallow, and a fever which has increased as the day has gone on .... I feel bloody awful. Being ill and 623098 weeks pregnant and looking after a 2 yr old are not a good combination AT ALL.
I want to go to bed :(

One of those 'struggling' days

So tired. Have no energy.
Woke up with a sore throat too.....
Ugh.

36 weeks

Your baby is gaining about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is a little less than 19 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy hair that covered her body, as well as the vernix caseosa. At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Babies born between 37 and 42 weeks are considered full-term.)

Cool. Except I had miscalculated everything for some reason and thought that I only had 1 more week to get through before Dad arrives. It's 2 more. Grr.

Had 2 very lengthy appointments at the OB / High Risk clinic yesterday. Not because of anything wrong with me but because there were emergencies going on all over the place and I was kept waiting for 3 HOURS. That's what you pay the big bucks for here in the US. And all for the priviledge of having cotton buds poked in places one doesn't want cotton buds poked. I did manage to get a few of my questions answered though and I'm fairly reassured on some fronts.

Today I started regular Heparin. Filling the needles from vials manually is a bit of a faff, plus I have 2 shots per day instead of one, but I guess I'll get used to it. Whichever DR it was said that the Heparin needles are lots smaller was lying - they're exactly the same size. Ohh I and I get to not take baby aspirin tonight. And I get to take half a dose of the beta blocker. I shall rattle a little less tomorrow.

The nurse that I saw at the high risk place was really lovely yesterday and after asking me for full details of what happened when I had the Pulmonary Embolism, pulled me into an enormous hug and said she wished me the best and that nothing would go wrong this time. Bless. I could have cried.

Today we've been mostly de-cluttering the playroom and tidying up (major task) but also took a mid-day break to the mall because I had a hair appointment. Gareth took the boys to play on the boat play-structure they have there which went down well with them. Needless to say the playroom, despite maybe 5 hours spent on it today, is not finished. Good job I miscalcuated how many weekends we've got left really.

G and I are off out tonight for one of our few remaining chances to do so for the next few months. First task is to buy a gift card from the pet shop for Dylan so that when the baby comes we can present him with enough money to go and buy the sodding FISH that he is desperate for. Going to get him a small aquarium and all the bits, but obviously I cannot take that to give to him at the hospital so I shall get the man at the shop to tell me how much money it'll all cost and get a card of that value for him. Hopefully the stupid fish will last longer than the stupid sea monkeys that died recently. I hate pets.

We're then going for dinner at a new snazzy restaurant / wine bar in town followed by seeing Oceans 13 at the cinema. Sitting for long periods of time in the movie theatre is not getting any easier but I really want to see this film so hopefully it'll keep my attention away from the aches and pains that will ensue.

Did I mention how much my back has been killing me this week? Last night it was so painful I could barely walk nor get remotely comfortable in any position on the couch. I think I might attempt to book a pre-natal massage sometime this week, that or a chiro, my whole pelvic area and hip area is really really sore. Ah well, not long to suffer it :)

Exhaustion kicking up a notch

I've noticed over the last few days that my exhaustion level (which has been very manageable really) has kicked up a notch or two. I now wake up tired, remain tired all day, haven't got the energy to do much at all, and have a spell in the afternoon where I can barely keep my eyes open. Of course napping is not an option with a small boy running around! I had a good 8 hours solid sleep last night and my body thinks I've not slept in a month.

I'm trying to keep busy to keep my mind off it, but of course that does tend to exaggerate the problem.

I am cutting my dose of beta blockers in half in a few days. I am hoping that this will help because they have definitely made me tired.... so stopping them should in theory lift the tiredness a little.

In theory.

Fears

Starting to get a bit on the scared side about various things. I'm seeing my OB on Friday and I need to ask her some questions.

First, the question of moving around following the c-section. I want to be out of bed as quickly as posisble. Their policy is 24 hours. I want confirmation that they'll let me have some middle ground and be out earlier. My main fear in this case, obviously, is another blood clot.

2. Discuss what happens if the baby has some fluid on her lungs or similar like the boys had. I really want to avoid losing her to the NICU for hours like happened with Harry, esp if it wasn't really necessary.

3. What happens if I go into labour between now & then? What do I do? What will they do?

4. Vitamin K at birth. Can we avoid giving her this?

5. Hep B shot at birth. Will they give me a hard time for refusing this?

6. How long will I be in hospital assuming all goes well?

7. How long do I have to starve after the c-section?

There are more of these. I'll come back and post them as I remember them.

Then of course, I have those ever present baby fears emerging.
Will the baby be OK? Will she be healthy?
Major one - how I'm going to feel having a girl? It's been so easy with the boys, there's a clean slate - if you will - to love them unconditionally. Will I be able to do that with a girl? Will I know how?
How is Harry going to cope while I'm in the hospital? He's never had to be away from us. Will he be upset?

Yadda Yadda.

I'm a bit late to the party

This pregnancy bulletin boad site I go to - it has it's benefits but it is also incredibly conservative American PC and all that shite, and winds me up as much as I find it helpful and useful. Some like minded people set up a group on MySpace so reluctantly I joined it, having managed to avoid it until now, and I have to say I don't understand the fuss with it.... I think Im too old.

I was telling someone this and they told me to sign up to Facebook, something I was reluctant to do, social networking sites having completely bypassed me somehow. My friend told me I'd like it as it had 'real' people on it , as opposed to incomprehensible teenagers. Late the other night I finally signed up and lo and behold I am now a complete convert. Loads of 'real life' people that I know are on there, and it's completely addictive!

Just when you think you're on top of things...

G manages to smash both the large patio doors to the playroom. A stone kicked out from the strimmer when he was cutting back the jungle outside. Kiss goodbye to $500 for new doors!

Some more 'Before' and 'After' shots

Since finishing the nursery we've been working on Dylans new bedroom.

What qualifies a room in a house as a bedroom in the USA is whether it has a built in closet. Although we have 6 bedrooms really, the house only currently qualifies as 4 because only 4 of the rooms have closets - this will change of course. The closet in this particular room was really not a very good one either, a badly made alcove, arched, with no door on. The pole was so absurd that you couldn't hang anything on it either because it was so close to the wall.

The room also had a dirty and revolting carpet, the obligatory nasty brown trim around the window, brown door and door trim, yellowing and unpleasant electric fixtures, and 1 inch high skirting board. On top of that it had an enormous crack in the floor thanks to the big earthquake here some years ago and it was very noticeable when you walked on it - not to mention one side of the room being lower than the other!

We had used the room as a library since moving in... full of shelves, with a futon for extra guests. When G's parents were here we cleared the room out and emptied it.

The photo doesn't really do justice to how ick it was.

Anyway - it has been our latest project because at some point in the not too distant future Dylan is going to move downstairs and it is going to become his bedroom. The babies room is downstairs and I don't want her to be alone, plus eventually I want to move all 3 of them downstairs (Harry won't go until he's properly night time potty trained). Dylan will probably move down here sometime between now & Christmas, the aim is once the baby is sleeping through the night she'll move and then so will he.

First G ripped up all of the old carpet and trim. He then had to fill the crack in the floor and level it with some cement. Following that he trimmed all the doorways and squared off the stupid archway and put a proper door on the closet. He also put trim around the window making it, I think, the nicest trimmed window in the house! Following that we painted it (D chose his own colours), then laid new carpet and put new skirting boards down. He also put new electric sockets everywhere and fitted proper poles in the closet. It looks really nice. It's not furnished yet, sis is going to be sleeping in it when she comes for the birth and obviously D's stuff is all still upstairs until he moves, but I think the photo's show the improvements!

After, the same view as the 'before' shot:

The closet

Inside the closet

Looking back the other way

35 Weeks

3 more to go..... well 3 and some change, but 3 sounds better.

So much to still do in the house! Getting stressed.

This w/e we have to finish off D's new room then start on all the decluttering and tidying. Not sure why a new baby requires the house to be decluttered but it is just a fact of life, it does.

Baby News

So, according to todays scan, Little Miss Jones is measuring perfectly average in every area except her ENORMOUS HEAD which is over the 100th percentile...... another big headed Jones child on the way! They estimated her weight to be 6lb and 4oz, although previous scans have always guessed too heavy by at least a pound, so I'm going to guess that shell be somewhere in the mid 8lb mark at birth!

In other good news, my amniotic fluid levels have dropped by 6 points which is great..... obviously giving up the sugar did some good.

I also had a chat with the perinatologist about Vitamin K - a shot given to the baby at birth. I have a bit of an issue with it anyway - it's given because babies are born with low levels of vitamin K (clotting agent) for the first few weeks of life. As they have been since the dawn of time. For some reason we now give them an injection to 'cover' them until their own systems kick in. We give them 9000x the average amount an adult has to do this. And the risk of haemorrhagic disease is negligible (1 in 100,000). As the baby has a 50% chance of inheriting my clotting disoder it makes no sense to me to fill her full of clotting aids because the risk of that is surely going to be higher than the risk of not having it. The Peri actually agreed with me. He's going to do some research, talk to the hospital Pediatricians, and then call me back. Hopefully he'll agree she doesn't need it - meaning I won't have to say no 'against medical advice' which is a terrific issue here and one I'd like to avoid, especially as I'm already doing it for the Hepititis shot they give them at birth too - something I'm really unhappy about giving an hours old baby.