Friday at the Hospital or Let's Make a Day of It!
Hello and Good (Eastern) Friday to you all. Always, thank you for your prayers.
Rebecca had another decent night of sleep, waking up at 9:00ish today thanks to our Ambien connection. Feeling antsy, we left for our 11:40 appointment early because Rebecca needed to be some place not home (cooped-up fever). We stopped at Lamar's Donuts and enjoyed them while sitting on the sunny side of the patio.
We arrived for our appointment right on time, but had a twenty minute wait. The NST is supposed to last 20 minutes, 30 if the baby is a little uncooperative. We were there over an hour! The reason was Xavier was really not cooperating. His heart rate was strong and stayed around the mid 140s at the beginning, but he did not move around. His heart rate dropped around the mid 130s for a while, then up to 140 for a while, then down to the low 130s for a while. Well, you get the picture.
I used the time to schedule more ultrasound and NST appointments and to coordinate them so Rebecca did not have to spend the whole day in the hospital to get through her tests. This involved running back and forth between two wings as the departments cannot coordinate or communicate well in the scheduling area. I managed to get a good cluster of appointments set up through the end of May. I felt I accomplished a good task: Rebecca did not have to walk back and forth between wings and I got the schedule tight enough she would not have to be at the hospital longer than two hours on any day. It would be when I returned to the room the NST was being done in that I would learn either the irony or the futility of my efforts.
While I was away, Xavier began moving around a bit, which made things all the more interesting for the nurses trying to figure him out. The goal of the NST is to catch him moving (Rebecca presses a button and the ticker tape gets a mark showing the baby moved), then to see his heart rate rise (accelerate) by 10 bpm for 10 seconds, then return to its baseline. Xavier's chart today never gave a decent baseline for the nurses to look at, hence the hour-long test.
Not being able to baseline him got us sent over to L&D again where we got to undergo another three and a half hours of monitoring. (the area of L&D we were in is considered an emergency area, btw). Xavier's heart rate ranged from the low 130s to 150 and he moved around frequently. Rebecca did not have a button this time; we weren't recording his movement activity.
The ward was extremely busy today. One of the monitors in our room had a little pop-up message to the nurses encouraging them to be as speedy as possible in discharging patients. Rebecca and I hoped that would mean we would get out of there faster. Alas, no. After seven feet of chart cranked out of the monitor, we looked it over and saw nothing too different from two days ago when we had the privilege of being monitored in L&D. When, at last, the nurse came in and took the paper chart to examine with the resident doctor, we started packing to leave.
The nurse returned (her name is Diana and is one of the midwives at the hospital; an older woman with 20 years experience). The doctor found something in the chart that warranted further monitoring, another two hours of it. The issue was two or three decelerations (where the heart rate slows down significantly). We had several of these on Tuesday; in fact, they are what got us sent to L&D on Tuesday.
After that two hour stint, Diana rolled in a portable ultrasound station so she could measure the amnio levels. When she walked in, the monitoring machine hooked up to Rebecca was not emitting any paper tape (Diana purposefully turned it off two hours prior). She began fussing about it not having a paper record and made statements that suggested we might have to start over. I thought I was going to have to hold Rebecca down, perhaps hit her with a lithium dart. She was not happy about the idea of another two hours! Can't say I blame her. The monitoring is all recorded electronically, so the paper tape is only a backup device. We did not have to submit to another two hour monitoring period.
To measure Xavier's fluid, Diana chose the same four quadrant method that Pam, the mid wife nurse who saw us on Tuesday, had used. The results: Xavier's fluid level was about 9.2 cm, very close to Tuesday's measurement.
After further discussion with the resident doctor about the fluid measurements, we were released. Xavier is doing fine. On the way home through rush-hour traffic, we stopped off at a local eatery to sate a pregnancy need.
Xavier's face on May 3rd, 2013. His chin is to the left, top of his head to the right. Even though this image has him laying on his side, he really is upside down in the womb (head-down)