Apparently I was pretty serious when joking about these posts becoming more sporadic over the past several weeks. Weeks seem to fly a wee bit quicker during the holiday season. Luckily, I noticed with Eowyn's posts, they too started getting spotty during third trimester as well, so I'm guessing it just comes with the territory. No second-child complex going on.
I've mentioned this already, but I got to take the good ol' GD test a few weeks ago due to our baby measuring big. The plus side is now we know for sure I don't have gestational diabetes. It's been a bit of a stresser because had I been in the states, there'd be no issues at all. I measure right along with my dates. But, in Finland, they put you on a growth chart (much like growth charts for babies-which caused big issues for us with Eowyn in her early months too) and if you're outside of averages, you get special attention. Finnish women apparently have small babies because while at 31 weeks, I was 30 cm fundal height, that's a few cm larger than other Finnish women. I get a lot of "Woah, that's big."
I guess it's just one of the ways that having standardized health care can kind of be a struggle. Variations aren't really allowed. We keep referencing the fact that Ben is a pretty tall guy, and I'm nothing of the wispy variety, and we're hoping they won't start pushing too hard the whole induction thing too soon. Prayers appreciated. Hopefully we'll have that baby come early. Here's a study I found regarding the length of pregnancy for first time vs second/third time moms that I found pretty interesting. While it's survey based, they've got a pretty decent sample size (over 4000). All my pregnant friends, you might like it. It's a bit better than scoring forums and reading personal experience stories. So if our experience is similar, maybe we won't even have to worry about the whole 38/39 week induction thing.
We had a pretty awesome experience stateside with natural birth, and I'm a big fan of the recovery time that comes with it and the general ease that I had with other aspects of having my hormones do the work. So, we're rooting for that again. That being said, we're praying, and I'm learning how often my expectations for how it 'should be' get in the way of how things end up happening, then I struggle with enjoying what is. So, our goal is one healthy baby and healthy momma. The rest, in the end, are details. Since Ben isn't willing to deliver the baby himself (I asked) and home births here are like..10 a year here in Finland, we're embracing their way of doing things. I have high hopes. They have one of the lowest c-section rates, and seem to be pretty big fans of natural birth. It's just those jumbo babies that present the problems. :) Regardless, we're just excited to meet him.
Just to give myself a helping hand, I'm guzzling up that red raspberry leaf tea, doing my squats and walking all over this city. Maybe the extra weight will work to our advantage. Worse case scenario, word on the street is there's a trampoline kiddie play house nearby. I'll just hop onto one of those for a few big jumps right around the 37 week mark. That should do the trick, eh? ha.
We've officially reached the point where we get to go to the midwife every week. Pretty exciting. In a couple of days this will all be brand new territory. I've never been 36 full weeks pregnant. Excited to meet this little guy, but grateful for the extra time to have with Eowyn and to prep for his arrival.
Cheers to 4 weeks plus a few days till full term. It'll be interesting to see how far we get!
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