33 weeks

With us traveling there is no way I'm going to get a post up but I do want to post. If I take a weekly picture I'll just include multiple weeks in a future post.

So this week we actually had a scare and then a glimpse of the baby via ultrasound because of this. I had my regular appointment right at 32 weeks. When the midwife went to listen to the heart rate on the doppler, she said that his heart rate dropped. It's called a decel and can be a sign of distress potentially caused by umbilical cord issues. Honestly, it's very common for babies to have the umbilical cord wrapped. It's a very low probability but sometimes the way it's wrapped will harm the baby. This isnt' always true but sometimes there is a chance to catch it if you notice that the heart rate drops whenever the baby moves and then you have an emergency delivery and go from there. So this is what was running through my mind but I was trying not to panic.

The midwife set me up in one of the birthing rooms on a monitor for a Non-Stress Test (NST). The first 15 minutes or so everything was fine and then the heart rate dropped into the 60's and 70's and stayed there. I at that point started to panic. I was texting a friend who is a nurse in an OB/GYN office and she said you need to go to the hospital. But I was alone in the room and had no way to get the midwife or nurse who was monitoring me. The baby was also moving around quite a bit (which was reassuring but at the same time I was still scared out of my mind), and the monitor lost the heart rate altogether. They had told me if that happened to try to push it in, so I did that, but couldn't get the heart rate back. At that point someone did come in (it was kind of a blur) and then the midwife was there trying to help. They were very calm but I was internally freaking out and trying to hide that from them. She said at that point okay I think I want you to go to the hospital because they have better monitoring equipment.

So I picked up Dave on the way, crying of course. I knew in my head that the baby was moving a lot, which was a good sign, but I also knew we might be delivering the baby that day in an emergency if something was wrong. We went into the hospital, made it to the labor and delivery floor (no idea where that was but luckily someone with a newborn was in the elevator and told us what floor- I never took the tour and had Neil at the Midwife Center), and they set me up for a NST there as well. This monitors actually both the baby's heart rate and contractions. It turns out I also have been having contractions about 5 minutes apart. The midwife on call though said that as long as I wasn't feeling them that this wasn't an issue. This doesn't seem to be normal but it also didn't seem to be too concerning to them- they said some women do have contractions from 20 weeks on. I guess I'm one of them. And I had no idea.

I already dragged this out but after a few hours of monitoring and an ultrasound, they said everything seemed fine and discharged me. I'm still a bit nervous but I'm paying more attention to kick counts and I do have my doppler I can use for some reassurance. The timing of this is not really that great either; just because we will be physically moving. I'm driving one car. When we leave Pittsburgh we are out of network for Dave's insurance. We'll still be covered but at what cost I don't know. We will switch to insurance through my new company but that won't kick in until my first day of work. So hopefully things will continue to be fine but if I'm even remotely feeling something off I'm not going to let $ get in the way of getting it checked out.

On the bright side here is my baby! The ultrasound was great- they said everything looked good. I couldn't see anything because the screen was towards the technician and there was only one screen. But she did print out this picture for us and Dave was watching. He said he wasn't sure what he was looking at though because she wasn't pointing things out like they do at the anatomy scan. And she told me it could take up to half an hour but she was done in about 5 minutes. She was looking for certain things and if the baby isn't moving or something it takes longer to see them. This baby really moves. She wanted to get a pocket of amniotic fluid to measure it, or something, and he kept putting his feet in the way.

Since I am filling this out closer to 32 weeks I'm not going to fill out every field like I usually do. I will try to post my regular one answering everything at 34 weeks depending on if we have internet, etc.

How many weeks: 33

Size of baby: A durian fruit and measures 31 cm or 12.2 inches, crown to rump length. Head to toe is 17.2 inches. The baby also weighs 2100-2250 grams or 4.6-5/0 pounds.