Monday, December 08, 2008

Measuring Small...Again...Some More...

So with AJ, I measured consistently small for the last few months (by "measuring small" I mean that they measure the "fundal height" of my uterus (from my pelvic bone to the top of my uterus) while I'm lying on a table. The measurement is supposed to roughly equal (in cm.) the number of weeks gestation I am). With him, it was only a cm or two, it was consistent, and it was because he was breech. Apparently breech babies take up less space. This time around, when I've measured small (which has happened randomly throughout the pregnancy), I've measured _WAY_ small. They sent me for a sonogram to check on things a couple of months back and Baby was fine, just 35th percentile for weight/size. That's small, but not abnormally so. And I'm all for birthing small babies. I even had an above average amount of amniotic fluid.

Well, I'm just over 38 weeks today and at my appointment, I measured 29 cm.!!!! That definitely concerned the midwife some (although Baby's moving around plenty (still trying to escape through my belly button) and the heartbeat was strong), so she sent me for another sonogram. Baby still measures fine (and is _DEFINITELY_ head down this time!!!! Woohoo!!!!), and my fluid is on the low side of normal, but still well within the normal range.

So apparently this baby is going to be able to fit easily into small spaces. Maybe s/he will be the next Houdini. It's interesting though because my lung capacity doesn't seem affected, my bladder doesn't seem overly affected, and the indigestion has actually gotten better lately. So somehow, this little one has managed to squish my organs less, grow normally, and _still_ seem small from the outside.

Big things come in small packages?

And for those of you who want these types of details, ~1cm, 50%, and -2. If you don't know what those numbers mean, you probably don't _want_ to know.

Our hope for the week is that baby waits until at least Sunday night. It's not _that_ big a deal for me to miss the musical (performances are Saturday and Sunday at 6 - Saturday's a dinner theater though, so dinner starts at 6 and costs $10 - see here for details), but VNB is one of the principal characters and would be very torn/distracted if I were in labor during the show. Even if it were only early labor. And it would be hard for him to be gone from one of the dress rehearsals this week...so it'd really just be best to wait till next week. That's closer to the due date anyway.

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