Friday, January 29, 2010

Spinning babies for fun and profit

As you may or may not not know, I have Constant Hair On Fire Syndrome. One of the ways my CHOFS manifests itself during pregnancy is that I fail the one hour blood glucose test and then go on to pass the three hour test and never have blood sugar problems again for the rest of my pregnancy.

As I was taking the one hour test last week I knew it was just a formality. I knew I would fail it and have to come back in again to take the three hour test. I even warned my IFs that I would fail the test. I even told the lab tech taking my blood that I would fail and have to come back.

And hey, what do you know? I failed the one hour test.

Luckily I know my body and I know how weird it is so I really wasn't worried about the three hour test. It went exactly how I expected it to. Well, not exactly.

I was thrown for a little loop when there was a woman in the waiting room with me who also had the Gestational Diabetes Test Slip Of Paper Of Shame which meant we would be sitting together in a small area for three hours. She smelled. Like, really bad. She smelled like she had perhaps slept in an ashtray and then had a pack of cigarettes for breakfast and then made her clothes out of old cigarette butts and then wore Stale Smoke perfume to the lab.

I sat as far away from her as I could but even then I was worried that maybe the babies were getting a nicotine contact high from the fumes. Every time someone new would come into the lab waiting area they would notice the smell right away and then look around trying to figure it out who it was coming from. Each time it took all my restraint to not say "Oh my god! It's not me! It's her! And do you happen to have any fresh air on you!?!?"

Eventually I had to ask if I could sit in a different waiting area because the smell was just so terrible. But that's the bad news. The good news is I passed the three hour test.

Now I just need to work on getting this little girl into the right position. Sometimes I think she's in the right spot but then I'll feel a huge lurch in my tummy and I'll feel what feels a whole lot like a little back running along the top of my stomach.

Since my goal is still an unmedicated vaginal delivery I've been working like crazy to spin this baby. I've been putting myself into all kinds of goofy positions trying to get her to go head down. Most of them involve my head down on the ground and my butt up in the air. Most of them involve the kids laughing at me like crazy. I guess I'll see at my 32 weeks ultrasound if it was all for nothing.

So that's about it right now. Now I have to go clean my house because I'm interviewing a mother's helper this afternoon. I already feel like enough of an asshole hiring someone to come in and help watch the kids while I lay in bed. I don't need to feel like an even bigger asshole for being a person who hires someone to watch her kids while she lays in bed AND doesn't even bother to clean her own house. I'm going to try to hold off that level of assholery for at least a couple more weeks.

One year ago today I still used twitter.
Two years ago today Jesse and I nearly married two men.
Three years ago today I was pissed off at Aspergers.

2 comments:

Lindsay said...

Do you have to get a baby turned at 32 weeks? My sister's baby was transverse, then at the last minute, flipped over and came out head first. I can't remember if they had to do that really painful belly manipulating thing. I remember being scared for her about how bad that would hurt, but now I don't know if she did it or whether the baby flipped before that.

Ramble ramble.

jenn said...

Spin, baby, spin! I am boggled by the thought of someone who (bad enough) smokes while pregnant, but then doesn't even have the sense to try to cover it up (shower! mouthwash! perfume!) before going to the OB's. Wow.