The ultrasound was first as usual. The baby didn't seem to grow as much this past week. He measured ONLY 9 lbs, 7 oz. He was 9 lbs, 4 oz eight days ago. The ultrasound tech said instead of slowing down that last week's measurement was probably a little high and this week's might be a little low. His measurements gave him a gestational age of 41 weeks and 4 days.
After doing measurements, the ultrasound tech checks a handful of other things, like the heartbeat, the heartbeat in the cord, and the amount of amniotic fluid. One of the main things she does is the biophysical profile (BPP) test. This test checks the amount of amniotic fluid, muscle tone (movement of the baby's arms and legs), general movement, and breathing movements. She wasn't seeing the baby practicing breathing so she had to watch his chest via the ultrasound for 30 minutes because babies usually do this at least once every 30 minutes.
Well, after 30 minutes, he hadn't tried to breathe. So I had to do a non-stress test to ensure everything was okay. This just involved me being on a fetal monitor for about 30 minutes. The results of this plus the amniotic fluid measurement were good so it was decided that everything is okay. The baby had some big movements a couple of times and knocked off the heart beat reader. I had a couple of contractions while on the monitor and got to watch that measurement go from 30 to 120.
Last week my doctor said she was tentatively scheduling a c-section for this coming Monday. She was in a bit of a hurry and I didn't really get to ask her any questions. Brian and I put together a long list of questions last night and I was looking forward to getting lots of answers so that I felt more prepared going into the procedure.
Well, my doctor left to go do a c-section while I was having the ultrasound and was not coming back for the day. I was really disappointed but there's nothing I could do about it. I got to see the other doctor in the practice who I've met only once before. She did an okay job answering our questions but I would have felt better asking the doctor that is actually going to do the c-section the questions we had.
Even though my doctor thought a c-section was our best option, this doctor seemed to think we'd be okay trying for a vaginal delivery. But she also said it was pretty much up to us. This is when I really wished my doctor was there so she could see the current measurements and give us her opinion. I know she's overcautious sometimes, but I also trust her. We decided that since she recommended a c-section last week, we were going to stick with that.
I wasn't sure my doctor had actually scheduled a time for the c-section so the other doctor had to go look it up. She had and we're doing the c-section at 12:30 pm on Monday. I can't eat before the procedure so it's going to be a long morning!
We asked several questions about the procedure and feel pretty good about everything. The only negative is that we found out that the doctor on call this weekend is a male doctor that's not part of the practice and who we've never met before. This was the situation for Carter's birth and we have a feeling I'm going to go into labor this weekend and run into the same situation as last time. We'll see!
My other measurements were:
- Weight = 163 lbs
- Blood pressure = 100/60
- Dilation = 2+ cm
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