Non Stress Test Version 5.0

It looks like things are changing. Since John had never been to one of my non-stress tests I dragged him out of bed today so he could see what they are like (plus he missed the worst doctor's appointment ever last Friday, so he owed me one). The baby was pretty responsive, although he/she didn't move around at all for the first ten minutes. The new feature of this visit was that I was contracting every 5-10 minutes for the entire appointment. Because I'm getting close to my due date and the contractions are starting to get painful they decided to do an ultrasound to check the fluid levels and make sure I wasn't leaking fluid. I didn't get to see the baby because the ultrasound machine was oriented away from me, but John said Starbuck looks big and strong. My fluid levels were fine, but they told me this may very well have been my last non-stress test.

My blood pressure was up and I'm not sure why this surprised them since I was contracting and that hurts AND they had just freaked me out by telling me I needed an ultrasound. But I have to be on the lookout for any other signs of pre-eclampsia, which would mean an immediate delivery.

Let's just say I was happy that John was around to hear it all and keep me calm, although he looked a little pale coming out of the clinic :)

July Doctor's Appointment

Worst. Doctor's. Appointment. Ever. Avery has been freaking out whenever both John and I leave the apartment, so I gave John his first ever pass from coming to a doctor's appointment. Boy did that come back to bite me in the butt. The waiting room was PACKED when I got in, with standing room only for a lot of very pregnant women. Don't get me started on how angry I was that not a single father/grandmother/child/barely pregnant woman offered to give up their seat for the rest of us. Our regular resident was again unavailable. The system we signed up for was to see the same resident and attending physician every time, but our resident never seems to be around. Most of the time this has worked out just fine, I see a different resident but the same attending, so there is always a little consistency. Not today. Totally different resident, totally different attending. The resident finally came into the room after I'd been waiting an hour, told me that I was measuring 35 weeks (not 37.5 as I should be) and that the baby weighed about 5 pounds, but that I shouldn't worry because that was in normal range. The attending came in and was told this information and completely freaked out, said that the baby was WAY too small, that I'd have to go in for an ultrasound to determine what was wrong with the baby, and lots of scary possibilities I didn't need to hear. The attending finally decided to check me herself and realized that the resident had measured incorrectly, that the baby was just "all over the place", not tucked nicely, and was probably over six pounds, as he/she should be.

Then I got a couple of nice lectures about how I needed to eat more calcium and why in the world hadn't I already figured out what birth control we were going to use after the birth. That latter lecture was a nightmare and a half, but I'll spare you the details. Oh, and as they were walking out of the room they remembered to tell me that they had detected that I was bleeding. But it is probably just a bladder infection, maybe, we'll wait a see a week to see how that develops.

I guess I've been lucky that I never had any real reason to worry about the baby this entire pregnancy. But this last appointment has added more stress than I'm really ready for this late in the game. Everything is probably fine- the baby really isn't that small, and whatever is causing the bleeding doesn't seem to affect the baby as my non-stress tests have always been great, the baby is moving around a lot, and his/her heartrate was normal. The appointment was just handled poorly and left me feeling like I was doing something terribly wrong. I can't wait to see my regular resident/attending, which unfortunately might never happen as they aren't available for appointments until my due date!

Non Stress Test Version 4.0

We're in the midst of unpacking, still recovering from moving, and it is ridiculously hot, so I was pretty exhausted at today's test. I tried really hard not to, but lying down with all those soft pillows for half an hour put me right to sleep. The nurses laughed and said that pretty much everyone had fallen asleep that day, probably because of the heat. But Starbuck was cooperative again, so we were in and out pretty fast.

Non Stress Test Version 3.0

Baby looks great. The nurses said Starbuck was the most cooperative baby of the day.

June Doctor's Appointment #2

Quickest doctor's appointment ever, which actually wasn't so great. My parents were driving up from L.A. and trying to make it here in time to attend the appointment. Of course, while it normally takes us 45 minutes before we ever see a doctor, we were in and out within 20. So they missed the appointment by about 15 minutes. But, the doctor said that everything looks great, the baby is correct size, the heartbeat looks great, I'm gaining weight appropriately... AND the baby is head down! Quite possibly the most exciting news of the month. John had started to get quite freaked out over what seemed like an inevitable scheduled c-section. Naturally, my Mom and I went to Bloomingdales to celebrate. Now Baby Starbuck has a Bloomingdales outfit, while I'm pretty sure Mommy doesn't.

Non Stress Test Version 2.0

I only had to wait 20 minutes to be soon today, so that was a great improvement. Starbuck was very much awake during the NST, so the whole process went much more smoothly. He/she was not at all pleased with the monitors being placed over what is obviously his/her space, so decided to kick at them for the entire duration of the test. So there was lots of movement and lots of heartrate accelerations, indicating that everything is just fine. The nurses said that he/she was being a little showoff as they could hear the movements on the monitor from across the room. They said we are very lucky to have such an active little baby.

Non Stress Test Version 1.0

This is the kind of frustration that is amplified to epic levels with all of my pregnancy hormones. I set up my experiments to run for an hour to an hour and a half, met up with John made our way over to Perinatal Diagnostics. We checked in 15 minutes early and were told to wait in the waiting room. After about an hour and several other couples asking how much longer their own ridiculous waits would be I had to send John back to my lab to finish up my experiments because they weren't going to wait. Half an hour after that I went to complain and was told that we never should have been directed to the waiting room because there are enough beds to accomodate people as soon as they come in. I was finally hooked up to the fetal heart rate monitor and contraction/fetal movement monitor for longer than I should have been because Baby Starbuck just isn't that cooperative. They need to see the heartrate increase at least twice in response to movement and while baby was very active for the 45 minutes after our appointment was supposed to start, he/she decided to take a nap once I got hooked up. Eventually baby woke up and gave them the readings they needed. Everything looks just fine. We're hoping that these weekly tests go much quicker from now on...