A birth plan

Last night, LH and I had a chat about how the caesarian is going to go, and what will happen after it. There's a lot of unanswered questions I've got for Dr I tomorrow, and we decided we need an actual birth plan to make sense of it all.

My main concerns are around what happens to E3 after she's (still erring towards a girl :-) born. I know she needs to have her blood sugar monitored every 4 hours for 24 hours. My main concern is that a well-meaning midwife will try to give her sucrose or formula before I get back from theatre.

The info I got from the endocrinologist said I should try and breastfeed her as soon as possible and then as often as possible to avoid hypoglycaemia. This should be fine but I'm concerned that someone will try to substitute breast milk before I get a chance to feed her.

Of course, if she is in danger of hypoglycaemia, then all bets are off and she should go to the special care nursery so they can do whatever is necessary.

We really need to be able to have a chat to the paediatrician before the caesar to find out their game plan for a baby born of a mother with gestational diabetes. If we can do this, I will feel reassured that they will only do what is medically necessary and not automatically jump to the conclusion that I can't breast feed her soon enough and therefore formula is the way forward.

Something that happened yesterday that was very exciting for me. **Possible TMI warning**
Everything I've read says that I should be producing colostrum by now and in some women it actually starts leaking out.

Well, yesterday, I very gently squeezed my nipples, and lo and behold, some tiny drops of clear fluid came out!! I was so excited. There's no reason to think my breasts weren't going what they should but it was nice to see the evidence of it.

The midwife at our parenting class on the weekend did make mention of possibly expressing colostrum before the caesar so that there is some ready for E3 straight away. It would only be 1 or 2ml but maybe it will be worth doing this the night before the operation.

Its now only 8 days until we reach full term at 37 weeks. I am just so happy that we have made it this far. It certainly looked like an unatainable goal at 28 weeks.

I am eagerly waiting for my obstetricians appointment tomorrow. Its a month since I've seen Dr I and I am really hoping we can set a date for E3's birth. We've made all our preparations, done everything we can think of to be ready for E3 - now we just want to know when it will all happen.