Thursday, August 4, 2011

Adjusting expectations

David learned yesterday that we may not actually hear about his various job offers on Aug 15th. His company will have some information on that date, but HR and his program will have some adjustments to do before they can present the offers to David, so it will likely take a bit longer for us to actually hear anything. How much longer? We don't know! I would think a few days or a week should be enough time, but we really don't know. So, we will continue to be as patient as we can, and we will update everyone when we know something, but it may be a little while yet.

In other news, I had an appointment yesterday that went a little sideways. The baby is doing great and and so am I, thankfully, but the dr and I had an interesting discussion about the delivery.

I've been expecting that I'll be able to try for a VBAC for this delivery, since my OBs have really encouraged it from the beginning, and everything went so well with Peter's, but yesterday my dr laid out the set of conditions that I have to meet in order to even be allowed to attempt a VBAC. Honestly, I'm really not sure I'll meet their criteria. The baby has to be estimated at under 8 lbs, and I have to go into labor on my own by my due date (they might let me go a couple of days overdue, but really would prefer not to). Peter was well over 8 lb and I think 9 days late, and I just don't think my body is designed to make small babies that arrive early!

They're having me get an ultrasound in about 5 weeks to estimate the baby's weight(even though these estimates are notoriously error-prone, even up to a pound or more), and the dr already commented yesterday that I seem to be measuring big. Ay! Her best advice was for me to follow the gestational diabetes diet (no refined sugars, super limited white starches like rice, pasta, bread, potatoes) to help ensure that the baby doesn't get too large. I think this is probably not a bad pregnancy diet anyway, so I'll follow it and add in some extra exercise also, but I really wouldn't be surprised if despite my best efforts, I fail one or more of their required conditions and am scheduled for a c-section. It was a little disappointing to hear all this now, when I'm nearly 8 months pregnant.

The most important thing, of course, is that we do whatever is safest for baby David and for me. This particular OB practice has such strict standards so they can err on the side of safety all around, and I can understand and respect that. Still, our month of October is going to be busy enough as it is and I would love to not have to add recovery from abdominal surgery to it all.

My other choice is to switch to a different doctor now who would not be quite so strict with the conditions (and there is such a dr out here who has great reviews) but his office and hospital are an hour away, on major highways when there is no traffic, and maybe 3 hours away in bad traffic (and let's face it, bad traffic is pretty much a given here). Compare that to my current doctors and hospital, which are 10-15 min away on surface streets, and I'm not sure how comfortable David or I would be with that switch.

Anyway, yesterday was definitely a day of our expectations being "adjusted", and I'm doing my best to hang on for the ride and try and see God's hand in it all. As always, we appreciate your prayers and we will keep you updated!

1 comment:

Victoria said...

Ugh, Kathy, I can't imagine your frustration. It's probably hard for the OB practice to balance your preferences against the system-wide possibility of liability or bad outcomes. Still, I wish circumstances would allow them to work WITH you more, rather than forcing a set of (quite probably overly conservative) criteria on you. UGH.

Most important, though, as you said, is that you and Baby Davy remain happy and healthy.


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