28 week check-up

I went today for my 28-week check-up at the perinatologist (and a follow-up at the OB, too).

Here are the highlights (or the lowlights, as it were):

Curve Ball is showing signs of being in a "diabetic environment."
This is new. At my last check-up at 19 weeks, she was not.

What does that mean, exactly?

Well, for one thing, her little abdomen is measuring in the 97th percentile. That is pretty darn big.
By contrast, at 19 weeks, it was measuring in the 50th.

The big belly indicates that she is storing sugars and fats in her tummy, which is exactly what she is not supposed to be doing.

Also, she is 3. lbs. 6 oz. -- almost a full pound heavier than she should be (no wonder she packs such a wallop!)

This means that -- if she puts on half a pound a week, as babies can do during the third trimester -- I could be in danger of having a nearly-10-lb.-baby. Holy macaroni.

The doctors have stressed that there are many reasons why having a huge baby like that is not good for me.
1. I am 5 ft. tall, and a size 2. OK, a size 4.
2. Shoulder dystosia is a real concern at that size.
3. Therefore, dreams of an uneventful, vaginal birth (which I had with the boys) might be blown to smithereens.
4. Babies who are big because of being grown in a sugar-rich environment are not just cute and chubby normal babies. They are big in different ways: in the bellies, for one thing, and especially in the neck and cheeks and jawline. This can mean Curve Ball might get stuck trying to come down the birth canal and out of my body into the world. Very dangerous.
5. Again, vaginal birth = bye-bye.

In addition, Curve Ball is now at risk of having low-blood-sugar at birth (when they cut her from the placenta) and she is also officially at risk of developing diabetes as an adult.

To say that I am bummed would be severely under-selling all the sadness and anxiety I feel right now.

The good news is, I have been monitored since early on and will continue being monitored (now, even moreso) until she's born. My doctors assure me that all this monitoring means she should be just fine, in the end.

On the way back from my appointments, I put in the prescription for insulin, which I'm to take three times a day. I've already been taking it at bedtime (did I forget to mention that?) so I've got the needle-part down. But now I'll have to mix two kinds together (a fast-acting and a long-acting), so I do have a bit of adjusting to do to this new regimen.

But I'm totally prepared and willing to do it. I really do not care anymore about what I have to do. I will do whatever it takes, for however long I have to do it. Anything to help shrink Curve Ball's little Buddha belly, and get her to not be the size of a small turkey at birth.

I also have to go back to the OB every 2 weeks now instead of four, and at 32 weeks, I go back to the perinatologist for another growth scan and to start twice-weekly fetal monitoring. My boss is going to LOVE this!

On the bright side, everything else about her looked great today -- and the sonographer even broke the rules and gave me 3D photos of Curve Ball. I'm not a huge, huge fan of the strange-looking 3D photos, but we got them -- without asking -- for Cary and Dean. We put the pics in a frame, and those photos crack us up now because of how you can really see Cary in there and Dean in there, all smushed and water-logged, but still very much themselves.

So we begged the sonographer to give us pics of Curve Ball, even though they've changed the rules in that office about doing them, ever since too many crazy parents (not us, this time!) called in panics after getting their 3D pics home, thinking surely something must be wrong with this alien-skeletor-hole-in-head baby I'm carrying.

Truth be told, Curve Ball does look a little Twilight-zone-music-esque in the pics. And they're not as clear as C & D's were, because of the way she was lying.

But ... here she is, her first glamour-shot:


I have no idea who she looks like.

And, the last bit of bright-side news is: Regardless of whatever is going on in my sugar-soaked womb, little Curve Ball seems happy about it.

The sonographer and I both cracked up at this picture of her, which shows my little sweet treat looking just like she is in there just laughing her head off:


Awww. My sweet, happy little baby girl.

Now who wouldn't do anything in the world they had to do to make sure she stays that way? Certainly not me. I'm in hook, line, and sinker! Insulin -- here I come!!!