LONG POST ALERT. Let me tell you the whole story, because I’m officially impatiently waiting for baby girl and I didn’t think that would be me...

I’m a FTM, so when I first found out I was pregnant and figured out my due date would be around the end of August I told people the baby would probably be here in September. But then...

In March I had a little bleeding, upon further investigation I needed to go to a specialist because it seemed like my cervix was maybe short and I might need a cerclage. I went to my appointment with them and they said while it was measuring normal, they wanted to continue to monitor it because it was on the smallest end of the normal spectrum. So then started extra appointments with them. And then the whole pandemic thing, so now I was going to these appointments alone. But everything was looking normal. They kept measuring the length and while technically it was getting smaller everything still looked good. They said if I made it to 24 weeks I’d graduate from seeing them. I saw them at 22 weeks but because of the pandemic there wasn’t a doctor in the office location I was at, so they sent my ultrasound scans off to the office that had the doctor and they said to come into that office the next week to talk it through. When I went in they said let’s check it one more time. All the sudden in had shrunk a whole cm in one week, but baby had also grown enough in the last week that they couldn’t do a cerclage. So they sent me off to the hospital for extra monitoring. At this point since I was in L&D I was allowed my one visitor so my husband could come with me. I was 23 weeks and baby girl was considered viable, the monitors did pick up very light, very inconsistent contractions, but they decided I was not in active labor. They have me 3 days worth of this medicine that was going to stop any contractions but the good news was I could do this at home. They told us to be ready “any time” for baby to make her appearance. My husband asked if there was any chance I would make it to August/the due date. They said it was very slim. While they couldn’t predict if I’d be back in the hospital in an hour, a week, or 3 months the possibility of going all the way was less than 5%. They took some samples and ran a few more tests and told me to follow up with their office in another week and hopefully we would know why it shrunk so much in one week. When I went in they said everything came back normal and since I still wasn’t feeling any contractions they thought it would be ok to not see them until 30 weeks, if I could make it that far. They didn’t want to keep checking my cervix because that could cause it to shrink if they keep checking it.

Well then I made it to 30 weeks. Everyone was truly surprised. I was able to just have appointments with my regular ob! But we were still on high alert for “any time”.

Everything has been good at each appointment, then on July 31, they checked my cervix for the first time since May when I was in the hospital. I was 4 cm dilated and 90% effaced! They said it could be another hour before I was headed to the hospital or another month. (Because I’ve never heard that before, haha) Next week, same thing. The next week it was 5 cm and 100%. Ok so now I’m like any time girl. I joked with my husband she was set up to be his mini me, starting with having the same birthday. Then that came and went. Last week, no change. So they set another appointment for August 31, but chances were I wouldn’t be using it (ha, we’ll see). So here we are on August 28. Still no signs of anything moving forward. Is she still going to be an August baby, or are we looking at September? Who knows.

I have loved all my doctors throughout this pregnancy, and of course I’m thankful she’s made it to her due date, especially since we were thinking she was going to be extremely early, but Emerson Dorice, your mom is very impatiently waiting for you. Any time now, really any time.

Aug '2020 Babies