Week 33

Blood Pressure: Excellent
Glucose: negative
Protein: negative
Weight: 146lbs
Iron: low 10.5

Today, we visited Jeri again. Jeri had delivered 6 babies that week! She said they were all 9-10.5lbs, so they were long births. It was very unexpected to her that all those women would give birth in one week. She talked about how each birth was like witnesses a great force. I'm so happy that she is still amazed every time she helps deliver.

Jeri explained to us that it was important to have a support network around us when we have our baby. She was explaining to us that generations ago the grandmother would help out in taking care of the baby for the first few weeks. She talked about how families have become so fragmented these days, and how America has become an efficient society in which women give birth and return back to work fairly soon afterwards and keep on going with life. She talked about countries where women could stay out of work for a year, and countries that had paternity leave for the fathers. Jeri said that the most important thing was for me to heal as much as possible in the first two weeks after birth. She said that if I didn't have people helping out that it could take as long as three months to heal as compared to a few weeks. I'm very lucky that Tim is going to stay with me after birth. She said that he should take the 3am - 6am shift so that I can get some rest. I'm also lucky that Tim's mom is going to be around too. I wish my mom could come out, so I'm going to see if she is able to. I know that she would love to, but she has her own family to take care of.

Jeri told me that my iron was low. I suppose that is why I've been feeling so exhausted lately. So, I need to take Ferric Sulfate as well as eat some iron fortified foods. She said that black strap molasses had the most iron in it and gave us a recipe for molasses cake: Tims favorite. I'm also going to be drinking a lot of prune juice to balance out the intake of iron.

Jeri usually uses a Doppler to hear "little buns" heart beat, but today, she used a fetoscope/stethoscope to listen to it. She said that eventually Tim will be able to hear the hearbeat through my stomach with his ear. She let Tim listen to the heart beat with the fetoscope, and he noted that her heart beat had slowed down compared to previous times he's heard it. It's at 140; that's a good number. She felt her head and hips again, and let Tim feel them. He said he could really feel her hips, and he looked joyed by that. Jeri also said that "little bun" was a very playful little one. I certainly know that. She's so lively in there.

I'm going to start meeting Jeri every two weeks now.