Week 30

Wow. Week 30. Wow.

Was with Dr. R this week and although the appointment itself was a bit of a drag, the results are all good and that is what I am focusing on.

The appointment began with an NST: a "non-stress test", and the name is just a big fat lie. It is a highly stressful experience, atleast for me and Bruno. And I have to guess the girls weren't too keen on it either because they kept trying to kick off the monitors. That part, anyway, was kind of funny to watch and to feel.

They have me lie on my side on the hard examination table, then they goo up my belly and attach three monitors: one to monitor contractions and the other two to monitor the heart rates of the girls. That is the concept anyway. But my girls didn't like being monitored and so they alternated between trying to kick the monitors off (image: stomach as a big pink Jiffy Pop), and simply squirming away from the monitors (image: big game of intra-uterus baby Marco Polo).

This went on for an hour, before the OB staff finally gave up, unstrapped me from the world's itchiest polyester straps and told me I'd need to go to the hospital to get the test repeated. Oh goody, 'cause Bruno and I are just full of warm fuzzy memories of hospitals and pregnancy.

At this point, Mama needs some food, so with me reclined all the way in the front seat of the car, Bruno drives to a local Mediterranean joint, picks up a roasted chicken, tabouli and baba ganoush, pulls off on a side street in a beautiful neighborhood so I can have a view of green tree tops, and we have the world's most bizarre picnic, Bruno feeding me bits of pita-wrapped chicken. It was actually fairly romantic.

Feeding accomplished, we now head to the hospital. The valet parking guys are great and have us stop right in front of the main entrance, where they take the car and offer me a wheelchair. I get registered and up to the maternity ward and a lovely nurse takes my stats and hooks me up to a much more high tech, much less itchy monitor and off we go again. She explains to us that what we are looking for is for the contraction line to stay quiet, and the lines representing the girls to make little mountains as the girls heart rates surge and settle back down. Apparently these small mountains show that the girls are healthy and receiving what they need to from the placenti.

We watched our girls steadily beat along, but no real mountains appeared on the print out. While the nurse had set me up, she had been remotely monitoring another patient in another room. Her line was still up on the screen, and she had these beautiful mountains, several on the screen at once. I couldn't help but feel a little intimidated, looking at our disconnected, humpy little line. After 20 minutes, the nurse returned, and told us that babies go through periods of being asleep and being awake, and we might just need to wait a while. And she left.

Now we were starting to get worried. Why weren't our girls creating mountains? I drank some juice, and the girls woke up and started their hide and seek game again. Bruno came over to my bed and started chasing them with the monitors. He'd hiss every time I'd scratch or shift, saying he was just on the verge of capturing one of them making a mountain. I lay as still as I could, holding in sneezes, focusing on the computer read-out.

And then it started to happen: we'd hear one of their heart rates suddenly become clear and start to accelerate. We'd watch the number rise and rise: 140, 147, 156, 161! And as the heart beat slowed again, we'd see the beautiful little mountain appear on the screen. It was like being at the races: "There goes Baby B! Go, sweetie go! ('Don't move!', Bruno would hiss!) 171! That was the highest one yet! Oh, Oh, here comes Baby A! Go A, you can do it!"

Twenty more minutes and the nurse came to declare that both babies were doing just what they were supposed to. We were free to go, at last. After four hours at Dr appointments, armed with the news that my cervix, while shorter than before, is still holding strong, that the babies are thriving, and that my doc's are predicting I will carry to 34 weeks and beyond, I am delighted to be complaining about the inconvenience of a long Dr appointment instead of about feeling mortal fear.

We've come a long way, babies.