Friday, September 14, 2007

Midwife News

Well, I saw the midwife yesterday. It was a late afternoon appointment and I had to wait quite a while. While waiting, I browsed an issue of Countryside or some kind of homesteading magazine and found an intriguing article on dealing with 'calving malpresentations'. That would be the bovine equivalent of a breech baby. There was a lovely photo of a cow in labor with her head held between two posts and a farmer at her other end doing his best to 'push back' the misturned calf. He was up to somewhere between his elbow and shoulder. I couldn't help but ask the midwife if she was known to employ similar methods, and showed her the picture. She assured me that she would not do such a thing. I was much relieved.

While I can't say I enjoyed my pelvic exam (though I'm grateful this was the first of such this entire pregnancy!), I enjoyed hearing that I was dilated to about 3 cm. And after she 'moved' my cervix forward or somesuch, I could feel a definite difference (the baby moved down a bit) and I could be classified as 50% effaced. Yay. All yesterday evening I had minor contractions off and on, but nothing more.

I've been instructed to do the following twice a day: Go up and down my flight of stairs 4 times, followed by some cat-curl exercises (those would be: get on hands and widely-spaced knees, arch back, lower back and hang belly, then lean back so arms are extended and buns are somewhere between feet). This is supposed to help the baby get or keep that lower position and get things moving better. I think it will utterly wipe me out. I see why allopathic medicine can be so tempting. Do your thing, eat your Cheetos, show up, get a pill or a shot, ta-da! Actually I have managed to do that routine once today, but it hasn't resulted in any contractions or anything. I'd really like to have things dealt with in the next 24 hours; I can get a good price on PUL (polyurethane laminate) fabric thru a co-op (for diaper covers!) until tomorrow afternoon, and it would be nice to know what colors to order, don'tcha think? Hehe, what a motivator.

You can imagine me crawling from bed the moment the midwife announces, "It's a -----!"

2 comments:

Christina.B said...

Hope all goes well with the delivery, your lucky that you gotta exercise!

i'm on bedrest.

EllaJac said...

Christina,
Sorry to hear about your bedrest! Hope things go well for you. I admit, there are days (usually long errand-days) that I ask, "why can't someone put me on bedrest?!?" I wouldn't really wish it though.

Take care of yourself!