The awesome news is that Mark got a good job offer when I was around 37 weeks along, and he will start on Monday. I cannot express what a relief this was for me, heading into having a baby. His new employer was totally fine with him waiting to start work until after the baby arrived, which was also a relief. It's a return to sales, but he will probably end up making more money than he was at his last job which is definitely nice. I should be able to take a full 3 months off or close to it, now that Mark will be working again - which makes me SO happy.
The remainder of my pregnancy went pretty smoothly, although my OB decided to see me weekly from 32 weeks onward due to my history of preeclampsia. Because I had some ongoing reduced fetal movement concerns that resulted in an emergency trip to L&D for monitoring at 30 weeks when my OB was out of the office, I had a weekly non-stress test and ultrasound at each of those appointments, too. Fortunately Wiggle did beautifully on all of the NSTs. My doctor suspects that my feeling of reduced movement was due to an anterior placenta and a baby who decided to stay sunny-side up most of the time, and thus was kicking the placenta rather than me.
At my 38 week appointment, my OB proposed scheduling an induction. If I had wanted to keep going, we would have with additional monitoring but due to my history he preferred to get Wiggle safely delivered by my due date. I trust his judgment and honestly I was starting to feel D-O-N-E by that point as well. Neither of us wanted to risk my borderline high blood pressure progressing to actual hypertension or preeclampsia, as that would necessitate an immediate, high risk induction and quite likely needing mag sulfate again during active labor and for 24 hours after delivery (mag sulfate is a wonderful, life-saving drug but it SUCKS to be on it). A scheduled induction could be set up for his on-call day at the hospital and would mean freedom of movement and a more normal delivery for me. At only 1 cm dilated as of 38w2d, there was a chance I'd go into labor myself but it wasn't likely. So we scheduled the induction for his on-call day during my 39th week, Thursday June 13th.
I worked through the 11th. While I did have signs of going into labor on the 12th including some hard contractions, they never got anywhere close enough together to call and ended up stopping on their own during the evening. We got Lily and the dog to my parents' house that night and headed to the hospital bright and early on the 13th. I was up to 2 cm and nearly fully effaced, so my OB started me on Pitocin right off the bat and I had a textbook-perfect induction, labor, and delivery. Things got a little interesting for both me and baby in the hour or two after delivery but both of us were just fine with a bit of help. I'll do a separate post with the birth story.
Hannah Elizabeth arrived at 3:14 PM on 6/13/13, weighing in at 8 pounds 12 ounces and measuring 20 inches long. Lily was right all along in insisting that she was getting a sister! She is beautiful and healthy and we love her so much.
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