The Young & the Pregnant: Updates All Around
Hey Chicks! Long time no see! It’s been a crazy couple of weeks starting with (cue Funeral March) the Week of Finals which I miraculously survived. I hope all of you college Chicks out there finished up your year without too many crams sessions or sleepless nights, or even tears in some cases (I did a little of all three). Since Week 27 was mostly about being all-consumed with last minute school work, we didn’t miss too much when it came to baby stuff - although Little Man was the subject of my Language 120 final that I passed with flying colors. But even though it was finals week for school, Little Man and I were still learning new things! In that week’s childbirth class, I got to learn all about the joys of “Stage One” of labor. Here is Stage One in a nutshell: #@$*%!!! It’s the part of labor when your contractions begin and then escalate before you get the green light to start pushing. Stage One is going from one centimeter to ten centimeters and apparently, that can take a lot more time than you’d think. Stage One has three parts - Early labor, Active labor and Transition labor. Early labor is when you first start getting contractions (I’m told those hurt just a little). They can be irregular in length, hopefully getting more regular as time goes on. My teacher suggests that I stay home for this part of labor and to only to the hospital when my contractions are “4-1-1.” That means they are four minutes apart, lasting for about one minute each and this pattern continues for at least one hour. From there I’ll go into Active labor. Active labor is code for “The contractions get more intense and your cervix dilates more and you stop smiling at your loved ones.” I’ll go from about four centimeters to about seven centimeters during this part. Then I’ll reach Transition labor. This is supposedly the shortest part of Stage One, lasting only 30 minutes to two hours. Sadly, Transition labor is also the most intense part of labor with the longest, most powerful contractions. This is code for “The longest 30 minutes to two hours of your life.” It was a traumatizing class. Educational, but…ugh. You would think Week 28 would go uphill from there but that week was the week we learned about Stage Two: Delivering the Baby. This was the week our class finally did what I was afraid we would do - watch a video of a woman giving birth. I was really hoping to avoid this particular experience but alas…this class doesn’t do much in the way of “shielding” you from reality. The one thing I learned from that video - the umbilical cord looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. No joke. We finished up that class by learning about Stage Three, which is the delivery of the placenta. The placenta is what has been nourishing the baby throughout a majority of the pregnancy. It filters blood, waste, food, sugar and anything else that goes from the mother’s system (that’s me!) to the baby’s system (that’s Little Man!). Once you deliver the baby, the uterus automatically shrinks quite a bit, causing the placenta to detach from its home on the wall of the uterus. That process doesn’t seem all that pleasant either but after giving birth to a human being, a little placenta will - hopefully - seem like nothing. Week 29 brought happier things, like a trip to the doctor’s office! I brought my mom and Snowboarding Sam with me to my four week appointment and we all got to hear the heartbeat again. I was weighed and measured, as usual. But this visit, I got something extra special - it’s called a RhoGam shot. Since my blood type is negative (like A-, B-, AB-, or O-)and we were unsure as to what Fertile Fred’s blood type was, they didn’t want to chance that the baby might have a positive blood type (like A+, B+, AB+ or O+). Because if the baby did have a positive blood type, eventually, my “negative” blood might see the baby’s “positive” blood as a foreign substance that needed fighting off. So I got my shot (in the buttox…whoopee) and now Little Man is saved! Week 30 was happily, wonderfully, amazingly spent at the beach, miles away from scary Childbirth classes or butt-shots. My parents rented a house on a quiet little beach and I brought Snowboarding Sam and The Godmother along with me to enjoy the sun and sand. Little Man is going to be a beach bum, I can already tell. He certainly seemed to like the beach and he loved being in the water. He always calmed right down whenever I swam in the ocean. I got a little sunburn on my tummy (that beach was missing a layer of ozone, I swear) but other than that, the two of us faired rather well for the duration of Week 30. I hope this article finds all of my Chicks in good health and enjoying the beginning of summer! I promise to never leave you for three weeks ever again! Until next time… Lil’ Mama is 18 years old and unexpectedly pregnant. She has recently discovered the wonders of Nora Roberts, is addicted to CSI and loves being tan!
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