We Have a Date

On July 17th we had our third visit to CHOP. The appointment started off with an ultrasound and prenatal care with a wonderful midwife. For the ultrasound, there are no changes, everything is pretty much the same. Waverly is still breeched and has a strong heart rate of 140 bpm. My amniotic fluid levels are still within normal limits. Measurement wise, she is still growing but she is still very much behind on her measurements. She is weighing 2.5 pounds, which puts her in the < 2nd percentile. Her abdominal circumference is 26.87 cm, putting her in the < 2nd percentile. Her femur length is 3.11 cm, again < 2nd percentile which is measuring 15 weeks behind. Her thoracic circumference is < 2.5 percentile.

During and after the ultrasound, the midwife was in doing prenatal care. We scheduled all of our future appointments. We start weekly appointments in August. Another ultrasound is scheduled for 8/12 to see her positioning. We also scheduled her possible Birthday, August 16th. If she is still breeched, a c-section will be done that day. If she miraculously turns head down, the induction process will start and she would be born sometime that weekend. 

It’s definitely weird having a date picked out. I am praying she stays put and continues to cook until the 16th. 8/16 puts me at 38+6 weeks pregnant. (I was in labor with Maverick at that same time and he was born at exactly 39 weeks.) Lets just say, I won’t be drinking red raspberry leaf tea, bouncing on a yoga ball, taking long walks, and anything else that supposedly jumpstarts labor. I am so excited and anxious to finally meet Waverly, but of course filled with great sadness knowing that a possible good-bye is coming. I am trying my best to soak in all of these last moments. 

After our ultrasound/prenatal visit we met briefly with an anesthesiologist and toured the labor/delivery unit. And met briefly with a social worker and then we finally met the child life specialist. She was great. She will basically help with all of the memory making/keepsakes. Help Maverick through this process and help us with what to say as Maverick gets older and starts to recognize what has happened. We talked about where Maverick would be staying, at home vs a hotel nearby. And we all agreed a hotel would make a lot more sense. Siblings have a more relaxed visiting schedule, and I want him to be a big part of this whole process. We will be able to have our family of four time making endless memories and when he needs a nap or a little break, he can go with family back to the hotel room. Even though he is not even two yet, he understands he has a baby sister coming. Maverick is already such a great, loving big brother and I want him to grow up knowing that he was there and he was and will always be a very important person in Waverly’s life.
After that meeting we met with our wonderful psychologist. We finalized our birth plan (which we can always decide to edit at anytime). But I was really impressed with how well she listened to us last meeting. We did not have to change anything in our plan. We just added some minor details that we were unsure of before. We gave her our visitor list and she explained to us that we get to direct how we want the visiting process to go. There are still some tough things we had to go through. She got all of our funeral home information. We have not made any final plans with that yet, so that is a tough phone call we still have to make to finalize most of those plans. She asked about breastfeeding and breast milk donation. Of course if Waverly is up for it, we will attempt to nurse. As for milk donation, I told her I am all for it right now, but that may change after the fact. So I will talk to the lactation consultant next appointment to go over that process and see if that’s something I would be willing to do. We talked about what would happen if Waverly does better than expected and she wanted to know if we have thought about that. Of course we both have. We know the basics of what would happen if she is doing well but we all agreed that we really didn’t want to discuss the details until it is needed.
And that was about it for our appointment. We go back August 2nd and then weekly after that. Less than a month until she is born. We’re asking for prayers that she stays put until the 16th, and positive thoughts that she will turn head down.
Thank you again for the endless support.