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Liftoff Boy is a big baby. The ultrasound today gave him an estimated weight of 6 pounds, 7 ounces. He's only 34 weeks and one day (full term is 40-41 weeks)and from his head circumference, abdominal circumference and femur length it looks like he's already what a lot of babies weigh when they're born. So with weeks and weeks left to grow, he probably will be 11 pounds or so.

Now this isn't sure. But even if he's not, there were a couple of interesting twists. Number one: His head circumference is 333 mm right now. This doesn't provide a lot of information about what he weighs, but it does mean that his head size is 4 weeks ahead of what the average is. 333 mm would be an average circumference for a baby at 38 weeks. This means that at 40 weeks, his head ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs likely to be very large indeed. At 5'4", this could be a real challenge. A macrosomic baby is already difficult (although not impossible) to deliver vaginally, but when this is combined with a much larger than average head, we're talking another fine route to a c-section.

Even though I don't know what "bonce" means, I found this article today about big heads and I kind of like it. It's British.

Number two twist: After being a perfect head-down baby for the last month or so, LB decided that today was a good day to try being breech. He may flip over again (in fact, he may have already) but when mom's considering a c-section and you have a giant head, a 91st percentile abdominal circumference AND you decide to be breech, it's almost mocking. Sigh.

So, we have scheduled (tentatively, things could change, the boy could....stop growing? Sure, it could happen.) a c-section for June 23rd. This is only 1 week early and will allow LB to stew in his own juices for another week. If I were going to be induced, we'd have to go a week earlier even, and I thought I'd rather have him bake another week than do the induction. I may have mentioned this before, but a study I found indicated that in macrosomic babies, inductions led to c-sections 57% of the time. So, big baby + induction = 43% chance of vaginal birth. Add in the fact that Mom is 38 and heavy and then consider that baby boy has a gigantic head, and I'm looking at a much smaller percentage.

Some women would absolutely be willing to try for the vaginal birth even if they only had, say, a 23-33% chance for it to work. But honestly? I don't want to. Complication rates with c-section are higher if the woman has labored ahead of time (this includes infections)and I don't see the point. I want my baby out in the world and healthy, and I don't feel I have to do this in a particular way to be happy about it. I don't see this as an amazing physical challenge, I don't see this as an affirmation of my womanliness. I will have abdominal surgery and it will hurt like a mf'er (I've done it before, I remember) as I recover and I won't be able to bond with the baby immediately - but you know what? Liftoff Guy will. And LG and LB will be able to cuddle and bond and then I'll come back into the picture a couple of hours later and that bond will be there. As I recover, LG will have to take a larger role giving LB bottles of breastmilk and changing him and my role will be important, but not primary. I want to be 50% of the parenting for this little guy and I think these circumstances will help that to occur.

I talked to a friend of mine today that did baby #1 as induction followed by a c-section (40 hours later - she doesn't recommend that route) and baby #2 as a secheduled c-section, and the father-son bonding in both cases was a joy to behold. I can't wait to bond with LB myself (especially after seeing his adorableness in the ultrasound today, drinking amniotic fluid and hiding his eyes behind his arms - he looked so much like a real baby this time and much less like an alien) and knowing his proportions makes him seem much more physically real. I'm his mom - we will bond. But this way, Dad is going to bond too, just as strongly. And while some natural birth moms think that this is bad (baby should bond initially with just one person - mom!), I think it's very, very good.