September 16th – September 17th
On Tuesday the 16th I had my “38 week check up”. We did the normal stuff, checked my weight (gained nothing thank you very much!), measured my belly (right on track), checked my cervix because of the contractions I was having over the weekend (dilated to 1), and then they asked me about movement, and it hit me that she wasn’t moving that much that day. I wasn’t too concerned because she was known to take a lazy day every now and then, and once we got home from the appointment I laid down, drake a Coke, and had a snack and she started moving like she usually did.
September 17th
The next day I was very attentive to how much Little Lady was moving. At around 10am I got a nice kick, and then around 11:30am she had the hiccups, and that was it. I was also having a lot of back pain. So once I got home at 2 and took the pup outside I had a Coke and laid down and waited… kick… waited some more… roll… she ended up moving a couple more times and by then it was about 3:30. I texted Ben about her low movement and suggested I lay on my left side instead of my back and see if she would decide to move more, and if not to call the nurse’s line at the hospital to see what they wanted me to do.
So I laid on my left side and the results were pretty much the same, there were a couple more kicks than before. So I called. They told me to come in as soon as Ben got home to monitor me, and the Little Lady. At first I was a little irritated at Ben for having me call because I knew they would have me come in, but in true naughty Little Lady fashion she would decide that she would have a rave and everything would be fine and the nurses and doctors would scowl at me for coming in when there was nothing wrong. But you can never be too careful so we went.
As I predicted, as soon as we pulled up to the hospital she started moving… But to be sure they hooked me up and began monitoring her heart rate and any contractions that I might be having.
The nurse explained to us that they wanted to see some spikes in her heart rate (because that meant that she was moving). Her heart rate was great, but steady (not enough spikes) and the contractions were low.
heart rate monitor!
monitors.
And that is when they admitted me, to have an ultrasound test. Yay ultrasound #6.
The ultrasound tech. came up and explained to us that this would be a timed 30 minute test and Little Lady needed to complete tasks to pass. She said that if Little Lady completed the tasks before the 30 minute mark the test would be over. But it didn’t end up that way.
Out of a total of 10 points Little Lady only got 2.
The doctor came in at the very end of the test and went over the results with us, and then dropped the bomb on us. Little Lady needed to come out… and soon. She checked my cervix again, and I was not dilated enough to have an immediate induction. This is when we also learned that I have what doctors call an “unfavorable cervix” which means instead of my pelvis being more oval, it was more of a rounded diamond shape, and Little Lady was face up which would make natural birth a little rough, but possible. Since I wasn’t dilated enough for an induction they would have had to insert a balloon into my cervix to get me dilated to about a 3 and that would take about 12 hours for that to happen. Once I was dilated to 3 they would start an induction, which could take up to another 12 hours and I still could end up with a c-section because of my pelvis and how she was positioned. We then discussed me having a c-section and the possibility of having a natural birth the next time around (VBAC) and she told me that it was 100% possible, which really eased my mind. She gave us some time to talk about it and Ben and I decided that a c-section was our best bet. We didn’t want to put any more stress on the baby was our main reason. (there may be a post about our reasons we chose a c-section).
Once that was decided (about 9:30pm) I was told that the monitors would be kept on me all night to see if she was just having a lazy day and to monitor her heart rate, and the next morning if there was a significant change in her movement we would repeat the ultrasound test to see if she would pass then. Once we discussed that and if there was no change I was officially going to have a baby the next morning.