Chelsea Kaplan’s Musings About Life... After Birth

I am currently 35 weeks pregnant, due with baby #2 in about 4 weeks (March 15, to be exact). Today, I had my first weekly OB appointment - the ones where they begin checking your cervix to see if you’re “close”.

Apparently, I am: today’s exam revealed I’m 3 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced (for those of you without a bevy of obstetrics knowledge, that’s code for “close”). When I went to the hospital in labor with my first, I was only 2.5 cm. I think my exact response after hearing the news was “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Good thing Dr. Loveland, my OB, has a sense of humor.

“What does this mean?” I asked, my mind racing through the list of 4,000 things I still need to accomplish in the 4 weeks before the baby is scheduled to arrive.

“Really, it’s pretty typical for a second pregnancy,” Dr. Loveland replied. “You could walk around like this for weeks, so ultimately, it doesn’t tell us much in terms of when you’ll deliver. If you do want an induction, however, it would be a smooth and quick one considering you’re already a third of the way there.” A member of a 10-doctor practice, she’s been pushing for me to have an induction on March 6th, a day she is on call, because she wants to deliver the baby. I’m not sure I want to mess with nature that way, but if this kid continues to jam his heel into my right-hand ribcage, we may have a date on the 6th after all.

On the way home from the doctor, I left “holy crap” messages with a few members of The Momtourage. Alison called me back twice until she got me. “What does this mean? I need to know what they said!” she pleaded. I recounted to her everything the doctor said.

“Woah,” she replied.

Freaked out, I changed the subject to making plans for tomorrow when we drop our kids off at school. They are in the same preschool class, so we go usually go grab coffee while we wait for them to be done. After we firmed things up she said, “See you tomorrow…..hopefully!”

Yikes.