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Week 32
~ Vents
I've had a fairly busy week. Last Saturday was Tommy's second birthday. My good friend and I had a joint party for our boys. Tommy and her son were born 4 days apart, June 26 for her son and June 30 for Tommy. My friend moved about forty-five minutes north of me earlier this year so we decided to have the party halfway between us at a park so that new and old friends could make it. Few people were able to come with the Fourth of July holiday, but we had a great time with the ones who were there! The boys had a good time playing together and Tom pretty much watched Tommy so I was able to just sit in the grass and enjoy chatting with friends. I really appreciated that, but surprisingly I was exhausted after the party anyway! I did indulge in one piece of birthday cake, a very small one. I had checked beforehand and one-twelfth of the full cake contained thirty grams of carbohydrates and two tablespoons of frosting has fifteen. Forty-five is what I am allowed at one meal and I didn't have a full twelfth of the cake or two tablespoons of frosting so I figured it was ok. I ate a few small cubes of cheese and a few slices of salami before the cake to make sure I had protein too! Not the best snack or the best source of carbohydrates for me, but I figured I had a good excuse to splurge!
I ended up getting very depressed though. That night and the next morning my sugars were sky high! I thought I had really screwed up and was extra good the next several days, but my fasting morning sugar was still staying up around 107! I was really getting stressed out and panicky when yesterday morning I discovered the reason why! Tommy had been playing with my meter and switched the bottles of testing strips. I was using the wrong code! For those who aren't familiar with testing, the test strips are calibrated and you have to set the meter to the same code that is on the bottle of strips. I can't believe it took me three days to notice that. This morning I noticed my sugar had been 105. When I used the strips that were the proper code I got a reading of only 83. Phew! I do check the code on the meter as he has changed that before, but I knew my bottle was one number and the meter said that same number every day. I never though to check the bottle of test strips! So now I'm feeling really great about my numbers, as they have actually gone even lower than when I was first diagnosed (or misdiagnosed as the case may be). I'm still very glad that I'm following the gestational diabetes diet, as I believe it can't hurt me and might keep the baby from growing even larger. It hasn't been all that difficult to follow. I do want many of the foods that aren't the best choices, but I say it's not difficult because I'm not hungry and I know that there will be an end to it. Whenever we drive somewhere I point out all the things I want to eat after the baby is born. Tom teased me to no end when we drove by a Dunkin Donuts today. He said he'd wheel me straight from the hospital to the donut shop immediately following birth on one of those little gurney beds so I could get my sugar fix!
I had my first appointment with the new OB last Friday. I still like her. We talked over some concerns I had. I had brought my records with me so she could make a copy. I also offered an explanation of my side of the story. I wasn't too pleased to read the notes from the beginning of the pregnancy. The OB said some not too nice things about me! We also discussed the inaccuracies in my hospital records. They had me listed as allergic to Demerol - news to me! I also found it interesting that I was induced on June 30 and Tommy was born on June 30 yet the surgical report states my c-section was on June 29! I was quite upset to find that the doctor made no mention of the baby's position other than to say that he was "unable to palpitate the baby's position". That combined with some other comments make it pretty clear to me that he used my obesity as an excuse (I hate that term, but technically in medical terms I am obese so I'm using it here). Several times he refers to things about my pregnancy as being "remarkable". For instance the fact that I didn't gain a ton of weight (I'm guessing he thought since I was heavy I must have no control over food and just overindulge all the time), again it was "remarkable" that my overall health was excellent as was my muscle tone and general fitness level. I guess fat people can't be fit! The part about being unable to feel my baby's position just was too much for me. He never even touched my stomach to attempt to feel the baby's position!
Well I don't want this to turn into a big vent about that OB. I'm happy that my experience there is over, but sadly the decisions he made will impact me for the rest of my life as I struggle to find care providers that will allow me to attempt a vbac. Once a vbac always a vbac, it doesn't matter how many vaginal births I have from here on out; many OBs will always see me as less than perfect and a risk, and with today's birthing climate most birth centers won't take me. It is really sad that women like me have been severely limited in our choices because a doctor was impatient! With all the controversy that has started up again about vbac you would think that OBs would make a stronger effort to prevent the initial cesarean!
A lot of women will tell you that one of the most important things to do before attempting a vbac is to deal with and process the emotions from your cesarean birth. I'm really not sure where I am at with that. I don't think I blame myself, although I do go through periods where I feel like I could have tried harder or I feel that I wimped out, but I realistically know that I didn't have the support I needed! I do put a lot of blame on my doctor and I do have some anger there. I don't think it's so much directed at him as much as the general community that feels that a woman and her body need help delivering babies. That attitude just drives me nuts. If it weren't something natural how would the human race be here today? Women are built to birth babies and the interventions that are done nowadays cannot be needed in all cases! Sure there are some cases where induction or augmentation or a c-section is legitimately needed, but not close to twenty-five percent of the time! Twenty-two percent of moms and babies did not die or have serious complications in childbirth before c-sections became so popular. In 1970 only 5.5% of births were by cesarean (according to data collected from Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Vol. 44, No. 15, April 21, 1995 as reported on the ICAN website). Were those seventeen percent of babies or mothers who weren't sectioned dying or having poor outcomes in 1970? No! Then what possible reasoning is there for the rate of cesarean increasing more then four-fold in the past 30 years?
I guess I was in quite the venting mood this evening. I better quit now! In other news it seems like this baby is still breech so I'm still doing the positioning and exercises, spending lots of time in the pool and going to the chiropractor. Hopefully the baby will turn by my 34 week appointment!
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