28 Week Appointment
Today was my 28-week OB appointment with Dr. Kaufman. I hadn't seen Dr. Kaufman since my 16-week appointment (at 20 weeks I rescheduled and saw a different doctor at an earlier time due to a snowstorm and at 24 weeks I saw a different doctor who could see me and do my glucose test on a late start Wednesday morning). Eric also hadn't accompanied me since my 16-week visit (although Gavin did a great job standing in at 20 weeks). As a result of the Coronavirus outbreak, my OB office is limiting appointments to one visitor and no children. Eric and I thought it would be good for him to come along in case the policy ever changes to NO visitors. We want him to be as involved as he is able to be.
Okay, here are the details fo the appointment: weight was good - 133.4 pounds, which means I've gained 16 pounds so far. My blood pressure was 102/60, which is on par with my usual reading. And the nurse gave me my Tdap shot today, which protects against Whooping Cough.
When Dr. Kaufman came in, she addressed Coronavirus right away. She said there were 9 pregnant women diagnosed in China and they all recovered. But a sample size of 9 is not enough to truly know the effects or possible outcomes. So the plan is to just avoid contracting COVID-19! The hospital is preparing as much as possible: the maternity ward is a protected unit so no beds will be used to treat Coronavirus patients, and in the event a mother or newborn tests positive for the virus, they have a plan in place to treat the mother/baby while keeping them quarantined away other patients.
Then she listened to Muffin's heartbeat (heart rate was 140s today), measured my belly (on track), asked if I've been having contractions (I haven't) and asked if we had other questions. I shared my concern with the baby being big and the baby's size impacting delivery. She suggested doing an ultrasound at my next appointment (32 weeks). Based on what we discover at that ultrasound, we can plan the next steps. If Muffin is measuring big, we can continue to monitor his or her growth during the remaining weeks of pregnancy. Eric asked if an induction would be discussed if Muffin's size is concerning. Dr. Kaufman said she would induce at 39 weeks without medical necessity (and also that having a j-pouch could be considered a medical reason to induce...). She also said that scheduling an induction would allow me to have a daytime delivery, meaning that Dr. Gross (colorectal surgeon) would also be physically located at the hospital and awake. We could let Dr. Gross know the date and time of the induction in advance, so everyone would be prepared for every possible outcome. While no firm plans were made (we will wait to see what we learn from the 32 week ultrasound), I feel very good about this tentative plan.
I have my next 2 appointments scheduled (32 weeks and 34 weeks) and am planning to just keep eating, sleeping, exercising, and slowly preparing for Muffin's arrival! Now we get to look forward to seeing Muffin again in 4 weeks.