December 19, 1999

Julie is doing well. Today is officially the start of week thirty-eight. We are now at full term! We've had a small complication that had us a bit worried over the last week. We were at our now weekly midwife appointment, when we found out that Julie's fundal height didn't change between weeks thirty-four and thirty six. On top of that, the baby continues to have sporadic decelerations in his heart-rate. We had to schedule a new ultrasound and a non-stress test (NST). Everyone was afraid that the baby was now under stress and not getting the blood flow he needs to continue to grow. Carla (our midwife) estimated that he might just be a small baby or that Julie had plenty of room to hide the size, so we shouldn't worry. Of course this was Friday, we had to schedule the ultrasound for Monday and the NST for Tuesday. This left all weekend to worry.

The baby did his part to calm us; we've nicknamed him the “Little Squirmer.” We think he moves more than average because at times his movements have surprised people who are examining Julie. We always take this as a good sign, at least for the moment. Sometimes we worry that his hyper-baby thing will come back to haunt us. Probably when he’s 12 months old, running around the house without a diaper, we’ll wonder what a mellow baby would have been like.

On Monday we had two things scheduled, the new ultrasound and birth class. We’ve grown used to going to Seattle. Traffic, riots, rain, nothing bothers us on our multiple trips every week to Seattle. People we talk to always think it’s strange that we live on the east side of the lake and commute to the west side for all of our appointments and birth classes. There are also great hospitals on the Eastside. We think it’s really cool that our son is going to be born in Seattle, so we commute. We had the ultrasound in the afternoon. Everything looked good except for the amniotic fluid levels. We thought this might be the problem because we had a NST in week thirty-two. The nurse made a remark that Julie remembered saying the heart-rate decelerations could be caused by low amniotic fluid. Everything else was great. Blood flow through the umbilical cord was great, his size was sixty-first percentile, and his movements were fine. Julie was supposed to take it easy and the midwife scheduled yet another ultrasound for Thursday, this time with an OB doctor.

We then went to birth class for “Grandma Gives Birth.” (I of course missed my beloved Broncos in perhaps the best Monday Night Football game of the year. This was only fair of course, Julie had to miss the Packers on Monday Night Football a couple of weeks earlier. These are the sacrifices that parents must make).

The next day, the NST was great also. The NST monitors the baby’s heart. The nurse just loved how his heart sounded. We felt better because everything is fine. Julie rested and drank lots of fluid and on Thursday the ultrasound showed the amniotic fluids had increased so nothing to worry about. Julie just needs to rest a bit. Friday, we did not go to Seattle. Next week, we get to do yet one more ultrasound and NST.

Monday at birth class, we had “Grandma Gives Birth.” Penny, our instructor, is a wonderful woman who has been teaching birth class and has been a doula for more than thirty years. She has four kids, the youngest of whom is our age. For our final exam, she gives birth to a little round, green pillow with yellow fringe. She can have the most realistic contractions on demand. She expects the partners to volunteer to help with the birth. I of course was the first partner to “volunteer.” After coming home from the Sonics game where the first signs of labor started, we slept until the contractions became too intense. Penny started to freak out during the contractions. I had to calm her and get her into a pattern of slow breathing. Between contractions she demanded Jimmy Dean sausages for breakfast. I suggested something lighter like fruit. I also timed the contractions, they were a good minute long and Penny couldn’t talk through them so we were off to the hospital to give birth. Someone else got to drive to the hospital. I think I passed the test, we’ll see soon enough.

That’s the news for now. We think we have the name. Birth can happen at any time now. Julie is having a lot of contractions when she stands up. These are pre-labor. Being at thirty-eight weeks, these are normal. (I say this so calmly. Yesterday we had to call the on-call midwife to find out).

I also want to wish my Grandmother happy birthday one more time. Yesterday was her eightieth birthday. Without her, none of this would be possible. We wanted to have the baby on her birthday, but the schedule didn’t work out. Now we are hoping for the first day of winter, followed by Christmas day, then the first day of the new century.