Author:
Heather
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Date Posted: 09/10/06 11:37am
Hi Nikki,
Measured at 34 weeks, wow! My first child, our son, was actually born at 34 weeks but he was fine. He was 5.5lbs and 17.5 inches which the doctor said was a pretty good size for his premature status. He was observed for six days to make sure he could regulate his breathing, breast feed, and pass stools and he had a pretty strong case of jaundice but that passed eventually and he was just fine. He's 8 now and a huge, huge joy to me. I was just reflecting on this yesterday, how blessed I am to have such a fantastic relationship with my son. I just really love the guy, everything he is as a person, and I'm SO lucky to be his mom. He's a very high gratification/low maintenance kid, lol.
My three daughters are an equal joy to me and their blessings go far beyond the nearly intolerable cuteness they inflict on you periodically, lol. I enjoy the deep connection I have to them as 'my girls' and the fun time we doing things together now. A little intimidating at times because they do imitate me a lot (for better or for worse!) and I can only imagine how much this matter more as they get older (they're currently 7,6 and 4.)
Anyway, I'm just so thrilled for you. Your excitement is quite contagious and now you've got me waiting to hear 'the good news' of her arrival. Have you picked out names yet?
I second Luka's 'pro-breastfeeding' rant, lol, very heartily myself. I miss it so much! The health and development benefits are obvious but the bonding experience to curl up with your little one and just rock seems to rock all of life's cares away for awhile.
I also agree with the advice not to stress about labor and delivery too much. It was hard for me not to with my first baby (fear of the unknown!!) but afterwards I felt very empowered and relieved that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd thought it would be. Every woman has a different experience, of course, but that was mine. The best advice my nurse midwife gave me was to go against the instinct to tense up during a contraction and just try to relax and let it 'wash over you.' If you do it it's much less uncomfortable and is actually more productive (opens your body up more quickly without the resistence to it.) The other great advice she gave was to plan on doing it naturally (no drugs) until it came to a point where it didn't seem possible. I didn't wind up needing drugs for any of my births and I have a feeling this aided the clear process of a quicker delivery to not have mixed body signals, etc.
Having said that, the third best advice I got was to take everyone else's opinion with a grain of salt, lol, because people can get quite passionate about birthing methods, baby rearing, etc. It should be really clear that whether you have a natural birth or drug assisted one, breast or bottle feed, etc, whatever works for you works for you and the end result in both cases is ultimately the arrival of your baby to love and know and in the big picture that's all that matters.
Yaaayy that you're in the countdown!!
With joy,
Heather
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