March 16

On March 16, 1952, my grandparents (my dad's parents) were married.

On March 16, 1974, Greg's Aunt Patty (his dad's sister) and Uncle Bob were married.

On March 16, 2004, Greg's (and now my) nephew Jack was born - his parents' first grandchild.

On March 16, 2010, Greg landed in Ireland to begin his six-month adventure living abroad.

On March 16, 2011, our baby will be born (well, provided he/she doesn't decide to make an early appearance).

This past Wednesday, we went to the doctor and had an ultrasound to check on the baby's position and size.  Our baby was turned into the head-down position - hooray! - and lying on its left side.  Good job, Baby Mueller, on turning head-down!!  The ultrasound technician commented again, as she did at the 33 week ultrasound, about how much hair our baby has.  I'm beginning to think that we'll be able to ponytail this child's hair immediately after birth.  Either that or we are expecting a baby monkey.  :)  The fluid level was fine and everything seemed normal for the baby.  Baby's heartrate was 128 and everything seemed to measure within one day of the due date.  It's always awesome to hear that all is well.  We also got a bonus 4D photo of our baby's face (which, unfortunately, I can't post here because there is a new scanner at work and it is apparently not operational yet).

After taking all the measurements, the technician gave us our baby's estimated weight, which was . . .

(DRUMROLL, PLEASE) . . .

9 pounds 7 ounces

Sounds like a big, strong, healthy baby to me!

Now it was time for a discussion with my doctor, who presented us with the facts but (unfortunately) would not tell me what to do.  Of course the ultrasound has a margin of error which could go either way.  We might have an 8 pound 4 ounce baby, or we might have a 10 pound 10 ounce baby, or anything in between.  You just never know for sure until the baby is out.  We could decide to wait until I go into labor naturally and do a trial of labor, which might end up in a successful vaginal birth or might end up in an emergency C-section.  We could decide to induce labor in hopes that the baby wouldn't continue to get even larger and do a trial of labor.  Or we could choose a C-section.

Ah, the first of what I know will be many hard decisions that we will have to make as parents.  :(

Although it isn't what I have always hoped for the birth of our child, Greg and I ultimately decided that a scheduled C-section would be the safest option, just because there are so many unknowns with attempting a vaginal delivery.  A vaginal delivery would require an episiotomy or tear for sure (and a fourth degree tear or episiotomy would not be cool).  The fact that our baby has changed position so much (breech, sideways, now head down) in the past few weeks would be a red flag to our doctor that the baby might not be able to engage in the pelvis the way it should, even if she had no idea of the projected size of our baby.  Apparently I also don't have a very big pelvic outlet.  Everything could be fine, or there could be a risk for me, or there could be a risk for the baby in terms of shoulder dystocia, a broken collarbone, or even worse birth trauma.

A C-section carries risks - more risks than a normal vaginal delivery - but at least we know what those risks are and know the risks are low, whereas the risks of a vaginal delivery in this circumstance are unknown.

We decided to choose the known risks over the unknown risks.  As my doctor said, whatever you decide, you will never know what it would have been like to make the other choice, so you have to do what your gut tells you is best for the baby and make peace with whatever that choice is.  After we made our decision, I could tell that we were on the same page as Dr. Fenoughty, and she admitted that she was pessimistic about my chances at having a safe, successful vaginal delivery, although she would not have prevented me from attempting it if I wanted to.

Wednesday, March 16 was chosen as the date.  Whenever I tell someone this, they want to know why it isn't the 17th (Saint Patrick's Day).  :)  Wednesday is Dr. F's regular day at the hospital, so scheduling on that day would give us our pick of when we wanted the surgery to be done, while scheduling it on Thursday would have meant that we would have to work around what the hospital had available.  While a St. Patrick's Day baby sounds really neat, seeing as this baby came home with me from Ireland, the 16th also holds significance for us, as you can see from the beginning of this post.

The C-section is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Wednesday.  That is so SOON!  I can not believe that there are just a few days left before we meeet our baby.  I'm nervous about the surgery, but I feel confident that we are making a good choice for our baby and I'm hoping and praying that all goes well.  As long as the birth results in a safe, healthy baby and a safe, healthy mom, that's all that ultimately matters!

We are so excited to meet our new son or daughter, and to introduce him or her to you!

From Loving the Life We Live