Dates

What an emotional rollercoaster this pregnancy has been! For anyone who is confused about my due dates, let me say, I'm confused too! So I'm going to give the timeline of my changing dates for anyone who would like clarification.

February - Positive pregnancy test! As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I did what I've done with all my pregnancies and looked on my calendar to see when the first day of my last period was (January 27th). I then counted forward 40 weeks giving me a due date of November 3, 2011. When I went to the midwife for the first time, she asked the date of my last period and using her very sophisticated date wheel, confirmed that date.

This pregnancy was strange from the very beginning because I got my positive pregnancy test when I was only about 3 weeks along. The test had a very dark line. With my other 3 pregnancies, I got a faint line at about 5 or 6 weeks that got darker when I retested a couple of weeks later. I thought it was weird that I could have that many hormones in my system that early to give such a dark line. I was also sick already at 3 weeks, which didn't start until 7 or 8 weeks with my other pregnancies.

April - I kept telling Devan that I felt more pregnant than I should be. On Hannah's 3rd birthday, people kept telling me that I was starting to show. This was really depressing because at the time, the baby should have only been about an inch long.

May-June- I got busy and didn't schedule any prenatal visits. Baby was moving around a ton and I was already getting some pretty painful kicks. Again, I thought that was odd for only being 4 or 5 months along. I went to a fetal imaging studio at the mall and found out we were having a boy. And he confirmed that it was just one baby. Up until this point I'd secretly thought it might be twins because I was feeling so much movement and I was so big.

July - I finally went back to the midwife. When she measured my belly, I was measuring at 29 cm, instead of around 21 cm. She ordered an ultrasound, which revealed that I was actually 27 weeks pregnant instead of the 23 weeks I thought I was. That ultrasound gave me a due date of October 8th. Everyone was quick to tell me, however, that ultrasounds after 20 weeks aren't very accurate in determining dates and can be off by a couple of weeks in any direction. I assumed that the period I thought I'd had in January must have just been some pregnancy bleeding. It made perfect sense that I'd be a month farther along than I thought since I'd felt big the whole pregnancy. I remembered the date of my last period before January and that gave me a due date of October 1st.

August - I moved to Washington and started seeing my midwife, Charlene. I told her about how my dates had changed and she was a little concerned at the accuracy of an ultrasound that late. I told her the date of my last period in December and we decided to go with the October 1st due date rather than the October 8th. It seemed the most accurate considering how late the ultrasound was. And with the move, I was having tons of contractions and I was sure I wasn't going to even make it until October 1st. I was so afraid that baby would come a little early and I'd end up having to go to the hospital so I wanted to make sure we were going by the earlier due date.

October - October 1st came and went with no baby. October 8th came and went with no baby. Charlene started to get really concerned and we did everything we could think of to get baby out before October 15th when I'd be too overdue to deliver at home. She decided to have me go in for another ultrasound just to see if my dates may be off. I was sure they weren't wrong because I'd been measuring at full term for 3 weeks before I even hit my due date.

I went in today for the ultrasound. They wouldn't tell me anything while I was there so I had to go home and wait for 2 hours for Charlene to get the results and call me. The first thing she told me was that the baby had scored an 8 out of 8 on his biophysical profile, which means he's perfectly healthy. This was such great news because it meant that even if I was more than 2 weeks overdue, I wasn't going to let anyone talk me into an induction when my baby was perfectly healthy inside me.

Then she said that they'd estimated his weight. Before she told me the weight she said, "Now, they're off 90% percent of the time on this, and I don't think this is really your baby's weight, but they say he's about 8 and a half pounds right now." Huge baby! Ben was 8 pounds 5 ounces so I'm not at all afraid of delivering a baby over 8 pounds.

Then she told me the news that 3 weeks ago would have made me cry, but today made me so happy. She said this ultrasound determined the gestational age of my baby to be 39 weeks 2 days, rather than the 41 weeks 5 days I thought I was. So, she said based on this new information, we can change my due date to October 19th and I will still be able to deliver at home up until 2 weeks past that date.

A few weeks ago I was so ready to be done being pregnant. I was so sure that it was going to happen any day. Then as I got farther and farther past my due date I got more and more scared of an induction and being pregnant for a few more weeks doesn't seem like a big deal at all. Having had one induction, I can honestly say I would rather go overdue than be induced.

This morning before I left for the ultrasound I prayed for a miracle and I feel like I got one. October 19th doesn't make any sense for a due date based on either of my last periods. And that they classified me as not even being at my due date yet while at the same time telling me I have an 8 pound baby is kind of incredible, but I'm so grateful. I've been praying so hard that everything would work out so I wouldn't end up in the hospital. This morning it seemed like there was no chance of that. I felt like I'd been abandoned. I still don't understand why this baby had such a strange growth pattern, but I'm so grateful that he's healthy and that I was given more time to have the birth that I want.

So...we can relax a little, but only a little. Baby should still be coming any day now. It may be another 3 weeks still, or it could be tomorrow. I'm hoping for tomorrow.