I had my first non-stress test on Monday after the ultrasound. I sat in a fake leather recliner with two belts strapped to my stomach. One is a doppler to measure the baby's heart beat and the other one measures contractions. I wasn't having contractions so that line was straight. The baby was very active on Monday, so she was all over the place. The read out was fine, what they are looking for is a base heartbeat, which her's was hovering around 145 and then when she moves, they want the heartbeat to shoot up about 15 points to 160, which it did.
Today was a different story. First of all, they called me in about 2 hours early because the scheduler accidently scheduled me only with the nurse practioner through my delivery. The doctor noticed this and had to change all of my appointments......again. Anywho, I got there and they strapped me to that machine for an hour! ONE HOUR! I was so fed up by the end. Baby was quiet today, just moving around ever so often, but I watched that monitor and saw every heart beat. I knew it was moving around fine. I think they did that because the doctor was too busy to come in, so they used the baby as an excuse to keep me waiting. Well, I complained (I was having back pain - first time in my pregnancy). It was because I wasn't allowed to move around, I was laying on my back and I had to go to the bathroom really bad.
I used the restroom and then they wanted to do a Group B Strep Test. Read about those here. Every woman has them now and I find out the results on Monday. If I have it, I have to start antibiotics or I won't be allowed to birth vaginally - just another lame intervention. As my mom stated tonight "how the hell did the human race survive if they keep coming up with all these tests?!". After that the doctor finally came in and we talked about induction, she said she doesn't want me to go past 41 weeks, which is different from what they told me Monday. They said they didn't want me to go past 39 weeks, not sure what happened in two days for them to change their mind. Then we discussed my birth plan. She was pretty open to it, except for a few things.
For the birth of the baby, she likes to have the cord cut kind of fast. I told her I want it to stop pulsing because I want to make sure the baby has all of those nutrients and blood being cut from the placenta. She was very hesitant about it. Then she said it is standard protocol to put a woman on pitocin to deliver the placenta and to massage the uterus. I said no, it is stated on my birth plan, no pitocin and no massage unless I am hemorrhaging and it is medically necessary. She said to remind her because it is her routine and she may forget. I told her that's why I have an awesome Doula, she'll be reminding her of many many things.
Other than that, it looked pretty good to her. We'll see how it goes. I just REALLY REALLY don't want to be induced, then I'll be stuck to monitors and IVs and machines and have no freedom of movement. I want this to happen naturally, so I am hoping with the full moon on the weekend of January 30th, every push their energies towards me, imagine me in labor. Full moons effect labor because we humans are made up of about 80% water and baby is floating around in water - therefore my body should create a tide and the water could break, throwing me into labor. Read more information here if interested. Of course this doesn't always happen, but I am hoping so! I think a birthday of 2-1-2010 or 2-2-2010 would be awesome numbers wise. More on natural labor on the full moon weekend.
I've been craving milk products a lot lately. I almost can't get enough milk and I want to eat whole blocks of cheese, which is not good for the bowels. It's kind of weird, I would think I should be craving red meat or something. I've also wanted brownies and sweet things, which I am not indulging in.....ok maybe I made some brownies two weeks ago, but I'm sticking with my dark chocolate and oatmeal Kashi cookies to fulfill my sweet tooth. I confess though, last night I made chocolate milk and it was delicious.
To all a Happy Friday, TGIF tomorrow!
La Sirena and the not so tiny tadpole
1 comment:
I was induced but only after 40 hours of labor and got to only 3 cm. They kept sending me home. I kept coming back because I couldn't deal with the pain. I had bad back labor and beyond the basic hospital birth class we didn't know how to deal with that. It was just me and Charles. No doula or anything. I am quite small and Logan was 8 pounds 14 ounces. His butt was against my spine and his feet were pushing up on my ribs. The epidural doesn't go that high. I had to keep my fingers pushed into me between him and my ribs just to get a little relief. I was also in terrible shape. In that sense you should do a lot better than me! I didn't exercise, I am not flexible, and the last two months I almost never saw Charles. I was 7 mo when 9/11 happened. We were at Ft Hood and Charles and everyone else was on terminal guard duty. 12-24 hour shifts. After 5 hours of pushing (I know it takes longer to push when you have an epidural) he finally came out. I had the midwife on duty, but that was standard at this hospital. The first midwife was a real crazy woman. She is the one who kept sending me home. Then after the shift change the new one kept me! I had a lot of bleeding after. They never mentioned pitocin to deliver the placenta but I was already on pitocin. The massage was done once in the recovery room. NOT PLEASANT! It was supposed to be done again later by the floor nurse but he was an idiot. Logan was in the NICU for 8 days and they were top notch! I only had a beef with one nurse because she gave him formula an hour after I had breastfeed him.I had left to do one errand and was gone for only an hour. Other that that one time I was there from first am feeding around 8 to last evening feeding around 6-7 everyday. But that only happened once.
As for birthdays, 2/1 was my Mom's BDay.
Good luck. Except for the getting really sick from not keeping food down the first 5 months, the last few weeks were the hardest. I took maternity leaveearly because I just couldn't get in/out of my car anymore. And I do home health so that was a lot of getting in and out. He came a week early so I did have almost a week before labor started. I am just glad that is all behind me! Logan is 8 now. If you want more than one, have them early. We were going to have another but we waited too long. Even with all the infertility stuff we never did have another.
Good luck. It wont be long!
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