A Slightly More Exciting Update

I was supposed to have my weekly OB appointment last Friday, but it got rescheduled to yesterday. Though they are uncomfortable, I do look forward to them to see if I'm making any more progress to having this little one. I got to see my actual doctor yesterday and she noticed when I had an ultrasound done a couple weekends ago my amniotic fluid level was slightly low. It was still within a normal range and the ultrasound tech said I was probably just dehydrated and that I should drink lots of water (which I have been doing). Since no one was in the ultrasound room, my doctor wanted to take another quick peek just to check on it. Her machine is harder to read fluid levels on, I guess, but her response was: "If you have time today, I'd like to send you across the street for a better ultrasound. If they agree with me that your fluid is low, we'll need to admit you tonight and induce you tomorrow morning." Say whaaaaaat??? I was kind of excited about the prospect though of being done being pregnant and meeting Baby H. so soon! She told me to go ahead and get some lunch and they'd call me and tell me when to head to the hospital for the ultrasound. I called Jeremy and my parents and sister to let them know and then I drove around in circles trying to decide on a good place to eat alone. Chick-fil-a? No, fast food shouldn't be my last meal. The Corner Bakery Cafe? No, I don't want to try something new - what if it's bad? So I ended up at Jason's Deli because I knew it would be good enough and I wouldn't feel too weird eating alone. And it was good. And I didn't mind eating alone, it was kind of nice! I got the call to head to the hospital and Jeremy's mom met me there - poor Jeremy was busy freaking out and trying to finish up things at work in case I did have to be admitted last night. We waited a long time and finally I went into the antepartum testing area where they hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor. I had to press a button every time I felt him move, which I believe was testing to see if his heart rate increased with movement, which is what's supposed to happen. I did that for about 30 minutes and the nurse came back in and said the baby looked happy and that I'd even had a few contractions. What! I hadn't felt anything. So that was kind of exciting - forward progress is always a good thing. Then I had the ultrasound. It was so hard to see anything and I think the tech had a difficult time measuring my fluid level - in some places it looked low and some places looked normal. In the end she calculated it at 7.5 (cm I think) and below 5 is bad. So after talking to my doctor, they decided to go ahead and send me home and I'm going back on Thursday to have the same tests done as long as I'm "still pregnant" as the nurse said. I really don't think I'll be going into labor on my own between now and then, but I am excited to go back Thursday to see what the plans will be. Right now we're in sort of a weird holding pattern of only being able to plan ahead a day or so at a time, and that makes it slightly difficult with working. I have 2 tasks I need to complete that are seriously "do or die" before I'm on maternity leave, so I plan on doing those today and that way I can feel okay about having to leave work suddenly if the baby did come early.

That's our big baby news for the day! Hopefully no new updates until Thursday...