I had my 32 week appointment today. My blood pressure is great honestly! It was 132/59 the first time I took it which is in or just above the high-normal range, but I had also just walked through the hospital and up the stairs and only waited about 5 minutes before taking it. I took some deep breathes and took it again within a minute and it was 118/62, which is really good! So I don’t think there’s any worries anymore about hypertension. I am going to give the credit to the prenatal workouts I’ve been doing for the past 6 weeks or so. I don’t think my blood pressure was that low before 6 weeks ago, but it wasn’t terrible.
Baby’s heartbeat was great and baby is head down which is amazing! Now it just needs to stay that way. Baby is still measuring big so they’ve ordered an ultrasound just to check in on baby. My OB said that I wasn’t measuring so big that there is major concern and she wasn’t worried. She said since baby isn’t completely engaged, it could just be baby’s positioning causing me to measure a little big.
Since I am studying and practicing hypnobirthing, I asked a boat load of questions at this appointment about what I’m able to do when I come in to deliver. As long as baby is healthy and everything is okay, I am allowed to labour in the tub/shower as long as I don’t need constant fetal monitoring and I won’t need it unless baby is in distress. I don’t have to have an IV or hep lock (I find them quite painful and pinchy to deal with) unless I am Group B Strep positive because then I will need antibiotics. I can eat during labour and I can breathe the baby out if I want to, instead of pushing. This is all great news to me! Essentially, I can go in and do what I want/need to do as long as baby and myself are healthy. My plans could completely change once there, but I like to know policies and my options before going in. I was really anxious about this honestly but, it seems like Canadian hospitals are quite like birth centers for the most part or maybe I just have a great local hospital!
The only thing I’m not too pleased about is the fact that we have to be there for at least 12 hours before they will discharge us. If that is the case, we will probably just stay the 24 hours, get all the newborn tests done and then go home. I don’t get sleep in hospitals. I get home sick and I found myself almost in tears the whole night last time when Jordanna was born because I just wanted to go home and see the other kids. So, that is about the only thing I am dreading and I think starting off with a terrible night’s sleep with a newborn just sounds disastrous, but there could definitely be worse things!
My next appointment is in two weeks and I should be getting a phone call between now and then to set up the ultrasound appointment to check in on baby. This is the first time I’ve ever had to do this so I’m a bit anxious, but not too anxious. Who knew the fifth baby would give us such a hard time and so much anxiety?!
Listen to the blog post here!
One response to “Baby number 5 and Week 32 Update”
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All good news! 😊
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