updating...

My hands have been hurting to the point in which I really can't type much. Or do much with them at all. "Swollen" is an understatement - they (like my tootsies) are like inflated sausage-tinted marshmallows. Sexy, eh?

Juli (my wonderful midwife) says that it's because I'm low on salt. She said that it's different when you are pregnant - that us breeding folk need to have a goodly dose of salt else we'll bloat. I drank a glass of sea-salt water after that and have been adding a lot more salt to my food and lo! It's abated considerably. My fingers have some definition and feeling again!

It's so interesting having someone around who actually knows her shit.

Yesterday was a LONG day. I had to go first to Oakland Kaiser for a non-stress test. Non-stress tests (NST) are where they test your amniotic fluid and baby's heart rate to make sure your baby is still doing fine in there. Juli and Nikki (Nikki's our awesome doula and is Juli's daughter - I like to call them the Dynamic Duo) prepped me the night before about it all. What to expect. What questions to ask. What's "normal" what's not.

Because the thing is - while NST's are a good idea - they really are - they are often incorrectly performed and then the results used in ways that harmful. For example: they'd only test one pocket of fluid, base all results on that, and keep a woman in the hospital for an emergency-c (not the drink; the operation).

When I went in, there was big, black nurse (I think Kaiser likes to hire big, black nurses because they can stare anyone down into submission) who got me on the gurney (more with a look than anything) and checked my amniotic fluid with the ultrasound. But only one pocket! I asked her what it measured and she said 2.6. So then I said that since 5.0 is a "normal" low level (which I knew, thanks to Juli), wasn't she going to check other pockets to see what it added up to? She said no, she didn't need to, all she had to measure was one.

Um. Okay.

I didn't fight it since she seemed happy with that number and unlikely to strap me down, run me up to the 4th floor to slice me open.

Then she put the heart monitors on me and had me lay down next to the machine. I asked her what the point of that was since the baby was sleeping? I mean, shouldn't I try and wake the baby up? She said no... and that the baby was moving inside me, I just couldn't feel her.

Um. Right.

Anyway, after 20 minutes, she released me and said I had to come back on Friday for another one. I said sure.

In the 20 minutes that I was lying there, strapped up with the heart monitors, I was thinking how different this NST was than the one I'd had with Juli. Where she talked me through every*single step of what she was doing, explained everything and positively glowed because she was so happy for me that my baby is doing so well. I thought about how sad it makes me that us women here in the US need to be satisfied with sub-standard care because that's all most of us will ever get. We'll get strapped up to some monitor in a dark basement room, left alone and hey! Aren't they great here!

It's just wrong. Our 10, 20 minute appointments with OB's (trained to slice n' dice and not birth). Our blank-faced and rather hostile receptionists and nurses who collect our pee. Sitting in rooms, naked from the waist down, waiting for someone to come in so we can have their hands lubed up and shoved inside ourselves to "check" how well we are "going". At least cows get to stay in the barns where there isn't any fluorescent light.

Moving on, at noon I went to Jill, my delightful acupuncturist and got needled up. This was to reduce my stress level and also to help start labour. The latter hasn't happened, just the former. But it was nice being there. Kind of the antithesis of my morning with Kaiser. Beautiful light, comfortable environment, everything explained to me by a most-sympathetic healer. Leaving in far better spirits than when I arrived.

At 4:00, Nikki came over to come with me to the hospital for my OB appointment on account of the fact that I can turn chicken shit when dealing with doctors. I'm so glad she did. When Dr. Yu saw Nikki and I introduced her as my doula, her smile wattage increased by what, 2,000% and she became far, far more accommodating. I'm telling you... doulas work.

In our conversation, I told Dr. Yu that I didn't want to have the c-section on Friday like they want me to. I said I'd like to wait until the end of the 42nd week - or the very last possible time - to have one, if at all. She said that waiting that long or even pushing past Friday is 'risking fetal demise'. I didn't comment, just nodded. She said well then, she'd make a phone call and see what she could do in terms of rescheduling.

When she left, I turned to Nikki and was just like, why do I feel like crap right now? Nikki said it was because the doctor had played the 'dead baby card'. It made sense... right. Yes... that's what just happened. I said I wanted to do something that they didn't support and they say that it can kill my baby. This is WRONG. Yes, the risk of fetal demise does go up after 42 weeks, but it's a tiny percentage (about what the risk of a miscarriage through an amnio is, not that they were touting that when they wanted me to have one) and it's AFTER 42 weeks. What was I yesterday? I was 40 weeks.

Dr. Yu came back, said the only opening they have next week is for 5/11 at 9:30am. I said okay, we'll take it. Then she whips out all this paperwork for me to sign, consenting a c-section! I told her I wasn't going to sign anything and she said I needed to. I asked why? I can sign it at the hospital if I actually do have a c-section... She looked at Nikki then smiled brightly and said 'of course!'.

For crying out loud. This is just ridiculous.

And I *heart* Nikki.

And I want Moxie to come soon. Please baby, come soon.