Just need to vent because my wife and I are pretty frustrated with our doctor's visit yesterday. For context, she is technically due February 24th, but because she's a type-one diabetic, we were told they would schedule us before 38 weeks to avoid the dangers of a spontaneous birth. This past Monday, the doctor she's been seeing sent her to the hospital because she was showing symptoms of her placenta breaking down, which would mean the baby would be coming that day. Wound up being a false alarm, but the doctor that saw us at the hospital (from the same practice) told us the end was near and that we would schedule something this week because he would be shocked if we made it until February 3rd. She started her leave accordingly and everyone is expecting today to be my last day at work. At her appointment yesterday, we saw yet another doctor who told us things look so good that he doesn't want to schedule anything until next Thursday, and that it would likely be for the week following. She isn't even scheduled to see a provider on Thursday! On top of that, there seems to be discrepancies in opinion about the size of the baby and method of delivery. He is large (no doubt about it) and she is concerned about hypoxia, so if there's a decent chance that he'll be c-section anyways, she would prefer to just schedule one off the bat. That was kind of the plan until the doctor we saw yesterday urged us to try vaginally first. We're just getting mixed messaging from different doctors and it's slightly concerning considering she is a high(er)-risk pregnancy and we would be happy to do whatever is best for the baby if we could just get a straight answer. End rant!
Be ready for anything at this point things can change rapidly from day to day. sorry you’re getting conflicting opinions though.
your wife is pretty far along... could be any day now and the baby should be healthy. any idea in what direction the kid is facing? i thought that played a big part in vaginal / cesarean. wishing you the best.
Yeah, they actually said the ultrasound and stress test looked "perfect" yesterday, but the "any day now" part is the thing I'm concerned about just because I'm wondering like...did I make up or misunderstand the early comments about not wanting her to go into spontaneous labor? I just want her and the baby to be as safe as possible. And I have to trust that the doctors want that too, which I know they do, but when the left hand doesn't know what the right is saying, it's a little concerning. As of yesterday, he was laying on his side (head on her left side) facing inward (if I'm not mistaken). She did feel a couple of pops in her side with more intense pressure and is starting to feel period-like cramps though, which makes it seem pretty imminent. It's our first, so I have no real established timeline for this kind of thing.
my gut feeling is spontaneous is better than induced... it's nature taking the wheel as opposed to nurture. we had our first last may. i think that the doctor can try and shift the baby from sideways to head down. head up is breeching which is conducive to cesarean... ours was a natural birth. she skipped the epidural, too. we had to use pytocin and she got nitrous oxide. pytocin was to move the contractions along. her water broke on a sunday morning, we waited until the night to go the hospital because contractions were slow. they held us in the hospital once we got there. they wanted to start the pytocin in the middle of the night, but we waited until the next morning. she used the pytocin for awhile, but then stopped cause she was exhausted. walked around a bit, started a lower dose of pytocin, baby was out around 630 monday night. be sure to advocate for yourself. don't be afraid to call the nurse line or whatever you have and ask questions. they're there to help you.
Induction was a miserable experience for my wife. Took 2 days, pain was awful, was extremely stressful, they broke her water too early because two doctors disagreed on how far dilated she was, and then our daughter had a bowel movement during birth so she had to be in the NICU for a day getting better. Just a truly traumatic time that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
i had basically a 48 hour panic attack when holly was born and everything was extremely overwhelming/felt like every hour was a week. it passed. in the grand scheme of things, emergencies notwithstanding, even if everything seems like too much and that you aren't prepared ... it will pass. you got this.
Yeah, it'll be crazy and overwhelming at first, but you got it. Our second is due any day now and I'm still flipping daily between feeling very prepared and very freaked out about the change from one to two.
You’ll also be stunned at how normal things get. I was very worried about the diapering aspect of it all having never done it before and now it’s like “meh, just some shit on my sleeve” or whatever lol
thanks everyone I feel like I'm gonna die but I'm thankful this thread exists and appreciate the votes of confidence lol
The boy is 13-months as of today and it feels like it’s been five years. I never felt ready even up to The Day but it never mattered, no choice but to figure it out. Just advocate for your partner and yourself and ask every question you think of, and then begin the mental preparation for the moment they kick you out and you have to drive the baby home on public roads where it feels like everyone is actively trying to kill you and your family, which to this day is probably the most stressed I’ve been this whole time. Also, the poop isn’t gonna look like that forever
Congratulations! Know that everything will feel extremely overwhelming throughout the first few weeks/months - and it'll also all be a blur, but time quite literally flies so try and find some time to slow down and just enjoy it.