Four weeks from now I will be 20 weeks pregnant. Four weeks from now I will have a prenatal appointment that will consist of a new element: the fundal height measurement.
This new stage of my pregnancy is one I dread. I dread it more than blood tests and cold hands. This will, in theory, tell the midwife how my baby is growing. My babies don't grow well. I had a 37 week 3lb 10oz baby and a 41 week 5lb 2oz baby. My pregnancies are plagued with alphabet soup: IUGR, SGA.
I'm a young, healthy, chubby woman. Why can't I grow a healthy weight, chubby baby? "Maybe you just grow small babies." That's what everyone says. I'm 5'1'', but so is my mother and she smoked and had 7 children all between 6-7lbs. My husband is six feet tall. Where are his genes in these babies? My MIL is even shorter than me and both of her babies weighed over 7lbs at birth. My 15 year old sister had a baby who weighed almost 8lbs and another sister recently gave birth to a 9lb baby. There's no way I "just grow small babies." Except...I do. I want to know why though and I want to change it. A week ago I had a dream that I gave birth to a delicious 9lb, 12oz baby. I don't know what "they'd" say about a VBAC mom pushing out an almost 10lb baby, but there's no doubt in my mind I could do it.
The night my first child was born, less than 4lbs, there was a mother who gave birth to 6lb twins. I cried. She could grow two babies to 6lbs but I couldn't even do that with just one. It's such a sad thing to give birth to a baby that looks like his mother has starved him for nine months...
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
On Weight and Wait
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3 comments:
Well, I'm sure the HG for several months doesn't help matters, nor is it your fault! There's only so much you can do if your body throws up just about everything you eat.
But, you may want to check out The Brewer Diet, because I've heard from numerous women that they grow big healthy babies (but not too big) on that diet.
-Kathy
I know hypertension is linked with low birth weight babies. I have chronic hypertension, on meds for a long time. My first two were 7 1/2 lbs, but my last was more than a pound less. I had terrible nausea that time, but my blood pressure was actually really good throughout the pregnancy, so who knows. Somethings are just a mystery.
Please don't beat yourself up over your babies' sizes! I also grow "smaller" babies. Mine have all been in the barely 6lbs (term) to 7lbs (at 42 weeks gestation no less!) range. Perhaps, your body adapts to grow the right size baby for your body? You said you're only 5'1". Perhaps, for whatever reason, your body makes smaller placentas, thus, smaller babies?
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