Tour and appointment

Busy afternoon yesterday.

 

We started off with Jan Ivey (social worker) at TCH giving us a tour of the hospital.  We started on the 9th floor, which is labor and delivery.  M and N said the labor and delivery rooms were scary-- I think the OR is scary!  Well, actually, I'm still a little uncomfortable with the hospital at all, even though I full understand it's where we need to be.  It's just all very unfamiliar, compared to the simplicity of a home or birth center birth. Throughout the tour, I was surprised how many people (just about everyone) asked if we were having a vaginal delivery or a c-section-- I would have thought there would be an assumption that it would be a section.  Interesting.  Who knows what will happen for us, but I do like that they are welcoming of non-surgical delivery.  If that doesn't benefit me, it will benefit someone else down the road.

 

Then we headed to the 8th floor to tour the NICU.  At TCH, instead of a bay of NICU beds, they have each family in their own room.  So most rooms are designed to have one warmer or isolette at a time, but there are rooms big enough to take three.  Great setup.  Hope we never have to go there.

 

From there, we headed up to the 12th and 14th floors, which are mother/baby recovery and where I will go after I deliver (hopefully where the babies go too).  When it comes time to deliver, we will try to request a suite.  The suites have an additional entry room, which I think will be best for our rather large party of spectators.  Those floors also each have a newborn nursery.  I'm hoping we don't even send the babies to the nursery.  Slumber party for all in my room!

 

Last stop was down on the 3rd floor to pre-register.  I had wondered when that would happen (again, with my unfamiliarity with hospitals), so I was glad to get us done.  They have our court order on file, which should make everything go smoothly in terms of filling out birth registry paperwork.  All we need to do now is show up and produce babies.  Easy peasy.

 

Belly pic to break up the post (my equivalent of a commercial break):

 

 

Should have been a photo project pic today, but those are on my camera and I can't get them off until I go home.  So this is just filler for now. 

 

Ok, back to yesterday.

 

After the tour, we went next door to Dr. Carpenter.  Babies are all still in the same presentation.  (Boo.)  I asked whether he had any secret strategies to turn A and he said no, but that there's still plenty of room for him to turn, so that's good at least.  I honestly think our best strategy now is just positive thinking.

 

The primary purpose of the appointment was to check A's growth.  The good news is, it was right on track for the growth curve he put himself onto last time.  He's grown about 13 ounces in two weeks and is holding steady in the 47th growth percentile.  We don't know why he jumped down from where he'd always been in the past (65%+). It could be a difference between the two offices or maybe he just slowed down.  But as long as he continues to grow steadily (and he did), Dr. Carpenter is not worried.  I'm not worried either.

 

He did not measure B and C-- just checked heartrates, movement, and breathing, which all looked good.  But assuming everybody grew about the same amount, they should all average out to about 4 pounds each (A a little less, B a little more, C in the middle).  12 pounds of baby hanging out in my belly.  Good times.

 

Two other updates: my belly button has completely flattened out and I've developed a bunch more stretch marks.  This is what 12 lbs. of baby earns you.  Glamorous!