Day at the hospital, 30w5d

Yesterday was my now-weekly smorgasbord of doctor’s appointments. The short version of the story is that all was well with all three of us.

First was my 9:45 OB appointment. Yet again, my doctor was stuck on call in the hospital. Thankfully they didn’t even attempt to reschedule me, but simply had me see another doctor in the practice. He was nice, but rushed. And was kind enough to comment on both my weight and my stretch marks. Nice to meet you, too, jerkface. Yes, I’m up about 35+ pounds, but all of my other doctors don’t seem remotely concerned. In the meantime, my blood pressure is still just fine and my belly is measuring about 40 weeks. No wonder all of my maternity shirts are getting too short.

On my way out, I realized I had managed to spill a cup full of water onto my driver’s seat, and I had only a single napkin in the car. I also discovered that the driver of the Honda Odyssey to my left had parked so close that I couldn’t actually squeeze my enormous belly in between the cars. Nothing quite so graceful as a pregnant lady having to climb in the passenger side, only to sit her big behind in a nice, wet seat. I had a damp tush for the rest of the morning.

On over to the hospital for my ultrasound, where the babies had their first official biophysical profile. They scored 100%! Good test takers, clearly. They both showed good levels of amniotic fluid, practiced breathing movements, moved their little hands, and had a good kick or two. No growth estimates, we’ll check that again next week.

The non-stress test didn’t go as smoothly as last week, only because the babies were less cooperative. Their heartbeats, though clearly good and present and all of that, were harder to find and keep a lock on to track for more than two or three minutes at a time, and that with the poor nurse standing next to me holding the sensors on my belly. Alas, they were troublemakers. But what tracking they did get looked just fine, and I didn’t have any contractions while on the monitor. So after about half an hour, they decided it was good enough and sent me home. Back again next week!

I went home and was finally able to change out of my damp shorts (I swear I wasn’t leaking amniotic fluid!), huddled in my bedroom with the air conditioning for a while, and topped off my day with my very first prenatal massage. It was nothing short of delicious. I must do this again. My back has been so stiff and out of sorts, yet it feels almost impossible to get a good stretch or to crack my back. So to have someone work on my stressed muscles and aching joints for over an hour was just heaven.

That’s the update from here. Hope everyone is doing well out in pregnancy/baby land.