Full Term!

Thirty-eight weeks today! By all calendar measures, Fish is now full term and could literally come at any time. No signs of impending labour, fortunately, and I am still hoping to work another two weeks (or at least through the 20th). This will depend entirely on Fish, I think, and how much or how little discomfort I am in - which still varies enormously from day to day and, sometimes, hour to hour.

Martin is nearing the end of his active work as well, with only seven more days of work over the next two weeks. The last time we were both not working was January of 2010, shortly after our arrival in the US. A lot has changed since then! But the biggest difference this time is that our health insurance will continue to be active. I'll have to file some paperwork within the first 30 days after birth to get the baby added to it.

My next midwife appointment is on Wednesday evening. We've got to make some decisions about standard newborn medical procedures (though we can change our minds at any time). These procedures include the vitamin K shot, eye ointment, PKU screening, and the newborn hearing test. Oregon law permits parents to decline any of those tests, so we will be weighing the evidence for and against and deciding for each one what we want to do. I think the vitamin K one is the only one I still need to look at more; the others we are pretty decided already. As always, we tend to lean away from unnecessary procedures done for the sake of "procedure", but that doesn't mean a blanket "no" to things - we always carefully research the options and weigh the risks and benefits.

Depending on how the birth itself goes, some decisions will be made for us. For example, if the baby has a particularly difficult birth and is at risk of internal bleeding, he or she will definitely need the vitamin K shot because it increases blood clotting capability. That sounds like a no-brainer - who doesn't want their baby to be able to clot their blood? - except that it increases it to about 9000% of normal adult levels. Is that good, or too much? There's a lot of debate about how much vitamin K newborns need and are "supposed" to have, hence the need for more research.