Just when you get one kid out of diapers...
So now at 32 weeks gestation, we have...oh, let's say 5-8 weeks to go here. That sounds like a big window, but behold, the human body in all its vagaries. I think we are mostly ready, but I think this is partially the second-time-around syndrome, where all sense of apprehension is dulled and amnesia has set in with respect to what we actually need to acquire up in here to accommodate the fact that this baby is going to be all born and stuff, and living on the outside. Like today it occurred to me that oh, I guess a newborn baby can't wear a size 6 overnight pull-up, can he? So I decided that we should splurge and get the new kid some diapers.
But the question is, how many? When Cal was born, I seem to remember having to run out to Walgreens an unseemly number of times for more newborn-size diapers--an experience that I don't want to replicate in the middle of January--but for the life of me, I can't remember how many we went through until he upgraded to a size 1. So...can anyone remind me how many diapers a newborn baby goes through in a 24-hour period? My recollection is 8 to 10-ish (we used to keep notes on his I's and O's because we were new at the game and we were residents and we were CRAZY), but somehow this seems like a RIDICULOUS NUMBER OF DIAPERS so I will defer to you all to remind me. It's been way too long, I can't remember.
Oh, and Update! My OB actually agreed to do a 39+ week induction if I haven't gone into labor naturally by that time. Despite the fact that I asked her about it twice, what finally made her agree to it (and quite readily, I might add) was the fact that Joe called her. JOE. NOT THE PATIENT. THE HUSBAND OF THE PATIENT. He posed it as a faculty-to-faculty "favor" and explained that he, like she, was also a doctor at [Big Academic Hospital], and he only got two weeks of vacation per year, one of which he was planning to use for his paternity leave. And since we had a three year-old at home, with limited time off for the baby, etcetera etcetera you know how the rest goes. Which, I have to say, is basically what I told her too, but I guess he was more persuasive somehow. I don't know.
Though I am mildly chagrined that it took some sort of mutual academic attending backslapping to get the job done (I mean, what am I, chopped liver? I'm only the one who's actually having the kid, and it's not like I don't know of OB, having been both a Peds resident for two years AND currently an anesthesiologist) in the end I don't really care and am just grateful that we won't be burning any of my maternity leave, or Joe's much shorter paternity leave, on waiting around for my damn water to break or some such thing. My official due date is Sunday January 11th, so the next time I see her, I'll see if we can schedule an induction date for Friday the 9th, unless I somehow go into labor on my own before then, in which case, we'll just go with the flow.
(Ew, "flow.")
