Textbook

In other news, I saw my midwife again at the 25 week mark last week. We're still going only every five weeks until 30 weeks; guess there's still not much to do except sit back and wait.

Pregnancy: how to learn patience.

We did start measuring the fundal height to check for growth, and I weighed myself too -- they don't make you weight yourself, but I do it anyway, just for my own interest.

Fundal height measurement is supposed to correlate to the weeks you are pregnant; weight gain is ideally 10 pounds until 20 weeks and then a pound a week thereafter. And lo and behold! I have 25 cm measurement, and I've gained fifteen pounds.

Which you know, just strikes me as a little weird. I mean, I'm happy that things look normal, of course, but to be to the exact measurement just seems ... hilarious. Mostly because the midwife and books and websites all say these are averages and every pregnancy is different and you might be measuring different, but approximately is fine. And so you prepare yourself to have gained 18 pounds, and be measuring 26 cm or something. And then .. nope. EXACTLY RIGHT ON.

The universe has a good sense of humour.

Also hilarious is this: during my last pregnancy, we joined a team with this practice, a team that at my 5.5 month mark announced they were leaving the practice five minutes from my house and moving to East Van. I was not amused, and asked if I could stay with the current practice. They obligingly asked the midwife with whom we subsequently delivered, and she allowed us to join her team -- very unusually as midwives four years ago were even more oversubscribed than they are now.

We liked this midwife a lot, and went back to her this time. She was, five months ago, partnered with a different woman with whom I had my first few appointments (you are supposed to alternate between the two, but it didn't happen). I liked her well enough, but she was young and had a nervous demeanour, and I thought that having her as the delivering midwife might make ME nervous as well. But ... well, it is what it is.

And at our last appointment -- finally with the "central" midwife -- we were informed she'd left the practice too. She'd just been a locum (for the permanent partner, now on mat leave, but coming back early), and had been offered a permanent position somewhere else. And so took it.

And although I wasn't altogether enamoured of her, it's still a little disconcerting that I now, at six months in, have to get used to / get to know another midwife who might deliver my baby, since the other partner is coming back on.

Sigh.

The good news is that the current midwife gave me a few doulas to check out, and I really like the looks of a pair of them, so I'm going to give them a call next week to see if I can get on their list. Yay!