Things have finally settled down here. We had a slight, could've been much worse, sort of emergency on Monday and I spent five hours at Methodist hospital being monitored. The doctors also did an exam and I ended up with another ultrasound. It was a bit scary, but in the end, they didn't find anything wrong and I was free to go home. (If you want more details, you can contact me personally. :)
While I was in the hospital, I learned many things about this little guy I am carrying!
1. He has a very strong heartbeat and likes to kick non-stop. At one point during the time there, the nurses actually had to turn the monitor down because he was kicking so hard that we could not talk to each other. I don't think he stopped moving the entire time I was there!
2. Apparently, a baby's heartbeat is supposed to accelerate and decelerate about 32-33 weeks. My baby's heartbeat is accelerating and decelerating already and I had just turned 29 weeks the day before I was there. The nurses were even commenting in the nurses station about this!
3. The ultrasound again showed how big this little guy is at the moment. They went through and measured every bone and checked all the major organs. I looked over at one point and saw this great big head on the screen. Again, I was 29 weeks 1 day pregnant last Monday. According to the ultrasound, his head is the size of 32 weeks 4 days!! I think it was 7.9 cm diameter and the circumference was 294.1 mm (or 29.4 cm). This was the 95% percentile. The tech said, "Wow, he's got a big noggin!" Great!! I have to give birth to that "noggin" in about three months!!
4. Every other measurement was at least 1-2 weeks ahead of where he is supposed to be according to my due date. And yes, my due date is correct. I paid a lot of money for an 8 week ultrasound to determine my due date (even though I knew my date already!!) I think he is just a big baby!
5. After doing all the measurements, they determined that he already weighs 3 lbs. 13 oz. and his average gestational age, according to the ultrasound, was 31 weeks 3 days and 62%. I still have 10-11 weeks to go!! I bet he will be at least 9-10 pounds in the end!
6. When you have a "slight emergency" and you scare your midwife into thinking you might be miscarrying, she arrives about five minutes after you do!! I was soo thankful she was there! She told me afterwards, "You really scared me." It scared me too!
7. When you call your husband and the phone rings in the middle of a meeting and tell him what is going on, he gets home as fast as he can.
8. Children get scared pretty easily. Since I had to get to the hospital quick, we just took the children with us. On the one hand, they are old enough to sit in the waiting room, but maybe not old enough to understand what was going on. Courtney heard the nurses say some things and I got some questions after I got home. I tried to answer them when I got home, but I do wish they were out of the room for that part!
9. We are all quite bonded with this baby! If anything bad would have happened, we would have been one sad family. It's one thing for just Matt and I to go through something terrible, but now we have three kids who are highly invested in this baby! It makes me sad just to think about it, but I know bad things happen and I am not immune to bad things. The kids had such concerned looks on their faces while we were up there. But we are thankful that everything is well!!!
On Tuesday, the same thing happened, but I did not need to go back to the hospital. I just had to lay down for two hours. I called my midwife, but since everything came back clear on Monday, she wasn't worried too much. She was pretty sure that I was not going into pre-term labor after reading the discharge report from the day before.
On Wednesday, I had a my scheduled 30 week appointment to see my midwife. She again did an exam and found nothing out of the ordinary. I have never seen her so baffled before!! She honestly did not know what happened.
She also checked my platelets and hemoglobin again. My platelets were up to 110,000 (from 107,000 two weeks ago) and my hemoglobin was down to 11.1 (from 11.3 two weeks ago.) These are pretty normal numbers for me, so she wasn't concerned about them either.
She told me to lay low and not do much for two weeks because of what happened on Monday and Tuesday. She said no lifting heavy boxes and no going for runs. I just laughed! I can't do those things anyway!! I have slowed down a little bit the last couple of weeks due to round ligament pain and those lovely Braxton hicks contractions.
Baby again measured two weeks ahead of schedule at 32 cm and my blood pressure was low like usual. I also gained another two pounds. I think baby's heartbeat was about 150. Perfect! He was even kicking my midwife as she was listening to his heartbeat. She reminded me to get my birth plan in order. I just need to print the same one off that I used for the other three kids! I had great births with them, so I am not anticipating any problems with this one.
One good thing about going to the hospital Monday was that I got to see where I will be having my baby in three months. This hospital opened about two weeks after Christian was born, so I haven't had any babies up there! I haven't even been in that hospital yet! Matt and I will still go on a tour in October or so. I was only in the triage part, so I technically didn't get to see the labor and delivery rooms. I didn't see or hear anybody else in labor up there, so I must have been off in a corner somewhere. It was pretty quiet! The nurses did a great job and were very professional the entire time I was up there. I hope I don't see them again until November!!
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