Monday's Scare

We had a bit of a scare yesterday...

I woke up yesterday, on my first day of maternity leave, feeling a bit "off". As in something felt like it was missing. I realized that I hadn't exactly felt any movements from the baby, and I wasn't sure how long that had been going on for. I called into the doctor's office to see if I could come in just to listen and make sure the heartbeat was still going strong. The receptionist let me know that the doctor was at the hospital until 12, but I could come in after then, or if I was really worried, to just go straight to the hospital and have them do an assessment. SHE didn't sound too worried, so I thought I would just wait until noon.

I did a bunch of running around and errands ("before noon?!??" you ask. You bet! I was up and doing stuff by 8:30 thank you very much), and then headed to see the doctor. My doctor is a very busy woman, and it was great to walk into the office and have them immediately take me back to one of the rooms for her to see me right away. First, she listened for a heartbeat - which was strong as ever. But then, no matter what she did (poking around, feeling around my stomach, even an internal exam - fun) she couldn't get the baby to move. This is when she started reassuring me that in 20 years she had only had 2 situations where that had actually been a bad thing, and since the moms had come in, they had been able to get the babies out in time. I could tell she was starting to get worried, which made me worried. She faxed my files over to the hospital and called ahead and told me to head straight there for a non-stress test. On my way out of the room she told me not to be her third "situation"... now I'm really starting to freak out.

Up until this point I hadn't said anything to Matt, since it wasn't supposed to be a big deal. But there was no way I was going up the hospital by myself. And no way if anything actually turned out to be wrong was I not going to have him there with me. I drove over to his parents house (he was still on lunch) and when I finally got there (3 minutes later, but it felt like longer!) I had to pretend to pet their dog until I could make myself talk to let him know what was going on.

Thank God Vernon is such a small place. I can't imagine having to drive half an hour to find Matt and then an hour to get to the hospital when I had no idea what was going on. When we got to the hospital we were sent straight upstairs where a nurse was waiting for us and took us straight into one of the rooms to get me strapped to the machine to monitor heartbeat and fetal movement. The first 15 minutes weren't picking anything up. We could hear her on the phone with my doctor letting her know the machine had only picked up 4 very slight movements in 15 minutes, and that I hadn't felt any of them. So they gave me some juice and put this thing that sounded like a razor on my stomach to see if noice would make a difference, and kept the monitors going for another 15 minutes... FINALLY SOME MOVEMENT!! And I even felt a few of them! I don't think I've ever felt so relieved in my life. The printout of the second test readings were passed around to a few people at the hospital and sent over to my doctor, who called to let me know it was a "beautiful strip" and that everything looked good.

Now that everything was ok, they let me know that there are a few reasons I might not be feeling much movement at this point. 1) If she's facing towards my back, any jabs and kicks will be going in that direction, and I won't necessarily feel them. 2) Since I'm so "small", she doesn't have any room left in there, so any movements she does make won't feel like kicks or punches anymore, I will be feeling more or the stretches or shifting that she does. 3) I've been pretty sick this past week, which apparently can also cause the baby to get "quieter". 4) The monitor picked up a few good contractions while I was hooked up. They said that a lot of babies seem to "rest up" when they know that their delivery is coming.

One more week (and a day) until due date!!