19 Weeks

Right now your baby is about 6 inches long and weighs about 7 ½ ounces. If you haven’t felt baby move yet, hang in there, because baby is moving all around and soon you’ll recognize and feel those movements.

Your baby’s brain is continuing to develop at an amazing rate. Millions of motor neurons are forming inside the brain, this allows the baby to make voluntary muscle movements, including thumb sucking and moving away from lights. The forebrain is dividing into two hemispheres that will become the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain. The nerve cells that serve the senses are also developing quickly now.

Your baby continues to mimic breathing, with their chest moving up and down taking in amniotic fluid to practice for their birth. Reproductive organs will continue to grow and develop and can be distinguished on an ultrasound. Be sure and tell your technician if you do not want to know the sex of your baby so that they won’t spoil your surprise!

Things are good! Belly is growing nicely and my fundus (the top of the uterus) is just a little below my belly button- right on target as it should be about at the belly button by 20 weeks.

I feel little flutters now and again which I thoroughly enjoy. The kids have been talking to the baby more lately. Today we sang B-I-B-L-E and Jesus Loves Me to the baby. Eva told me that God told her it will be a girl.

Sleeping is not as comfortable as it used to be... I am starting to strategically wedge pillows around my body now. Nothing terrible... just not as comfortable. Micah and I cut the breastfeeding back to nothing in the last couple of weeks because of nipple sensitivity, but now it's not so bad so he's nursing a little again.

My tailbone is tender again when I sit back on it. It is not so bad as it was during Micah's pregnancy and hopefully if I'm careful about how I sit it won't be a big problem this time. I wonder if it broke when Eva was born and it didn't set properly? Who knows. But if it's the worst of my worries, I'm in great shape. Better than sciatica or heartburn by a mile, I think.

I am supposed to see the doctor again this week but with it being Holy Week and Eva being home from school I'm not sure that will happen.

I am reading Christ Centered Childbirth by Kelly J Townsend and really enjoying and appreciating it. Among other things, I really like how she summarized Dr. Grantly Dick-Read's findings. He is recognized as the father of the natural childbirth movement, and wrote Childbirth Without Fear. I loved it, though its more technical style made it a tougher read than most childbirth books. I always enjoy a depth of information and it was through his book that I learned about how the muscles of the uterus work and are impacted by a woman's environment, feelings and attitude. Here is an excerpt from Townsend's book:

The uterus is made up of three muscle layers called the Myometrium. Each layer has a separate function during birth, yet each are intertwined and become one large muscle.

The outer layer of the Myometrium has fibers that are laid out in a vertical pattern. These fibers are similar to those that you see in a piece of red meat at the supermarket, laid out in one direction forming a distinct visible pattern. The fibers of the outer layer start at the cervix, run up over the top of the uterus and down the back until they reach the cervix again. It is this part of the uterus that is responsible for opening the cervix and pushing the baby out.

The middle layer of the Myometrium is rich with blood vessels that supply the uterus and baby with nutrients and oxygen. The muscle fibers of the middle layer are arranged in a figure-eight pattern around each artery and vein. The purpose of this layer is to support the blood vessels of the uterus.

The inner layer of the Myometrium has fibers that are laid out in a horizontal pattern that encircle the uterus. Most of the fibers are close to the cervix and spread out until there are very few at the top. The main function of this layer is to close the cervix back down after the baby is born. The secondary function of this layer is to become rigid in an effort to stall labor if the mother has become fearful.

When a woman is experiencing fear, she begins to resist the contractions by tensing up her body. By doing this, she triggers the sympathetic nervous system, which causes the inner layer of the uterus to resist dilation. Think back to a time when you were startled by something. What happened to your heart? It started beating faster, didn't it? Your heart began beating faster because there was an external stimulus that affected your mind, which triggered the sympathetic nervous system. Then your brain responded by dumping out adrenaline into your blood stream, which caused your heart to beat faster. The purpose of this was to prepare you to protect yourself or to run.

In just the same way, your uterus is affected by the sympathetic nervous system. The brain reacts to external stimuli (tension and/or fear) that can cause the inner muscle layer of the uterus to become rigid and resist the dilation efforts of the outer layer. As these two muscle layers work against each other, the uterus begins to feel stressed and real clinical pain develops.

Imagine yourself flexing your biceps. When your biceps are flexed, the opposing muscle (triceps) is relaxed, and vice versa. What would happen if another person were to try to straighten out your arm as you continued flexing? It would only take a few minutes for your arm to begin to hurt, right?

When the inner muscle layer of the uterus becomes rigid, it puts resistance on the outer layer that is trying to dilate the cervix. Essentially, both opposing muscles are flexed at the same time, which induces a type of pain during childbirth that is unnatural. As you begin to feel this pain, you understandably become more tense and afraid. This increases the resistance of the inner layer and thus, a vicious cycle develops.

[bicep/tricep activity suggested]

Not only can pain be increased by tension and fear, the length of labor is greatly increased as well. As a matter of fact, some women are so frightened that they can get "stuck" at 3-4 centimeters and have to have a cesarean section due to dystocia (failure to progress). While all this is happening, the two muscles opposing each other pinch the blood vessels in the middle layer. Oxygen to the baby and uterus is reduced and serious complications can result.

Women are understandably afraid to go through labor and delivery. When a person is afraid of something, they tend to resist it by becoming tense. This inability to relax during labor is normal, yet can result with the inner layer of the uterus becoming rigid, creating much more pain than they would have normally experienced, as well as a lengthy labor, exactly what they were afraid of in the first place!

A Certified Nurse Midwife in Iowa had this experience:

This was a lady on her 4th baby. I asked the nurse to listen to heart tones while I did a check. Her cervix was 8cm, 100% effaced, and that very soft, melt-away consistency where it would stretch open as wide as my fingers could spread. Just then, we heard a big dip in the heart rate. Immediately I felt the cervix close up to 6 cm or less, and a rigid half-centimeter thick. I believe this was due to the drop in the baby's heart rate frightening the mom. Heart tones recovered, mom was reassured, and she was complete in another 10 minutes. .. I am a definite believer in the effect that fear has on the cervix during labor. Bernice Keutzer, CNM