Today I had my first scheduled NST (non-stress-test) where they hook you up to monitors for contractions and each baby’s heartrate.
My contractions in the past that felt pretty darn strong were usually rated in the 40s (out of 0-100). That was usually with a baseline of 8-15. Well today my contractions rated a lot higher … in the 90′s actually. With the same baseline (baseline meaning what the contraction monitor reads when I’m NOT having a contraction).
I have to say it didn’t hurt that much, but it was pretty darn uncomfortable and I did have to breath through it. I was in the room by myself and it was weird making a moaning noise to get through it, but I did. The climax wasn’t that long up at 90, but the decline did take a little while, and it felt as intense going down as it did at it’s peak. Each DARK vertical line = 1 minute. It just spiked so fast I wasn’t prepared. The worst part of it is that I get a lot of pressure down there and I feel like I have to pee, LIKE NOW, or I might explode, then it goes away as the contraction goes away. LOL. I get contractions like these every 20 minutes or so. 3 an hour. That’s not bad per my docs and nurses and nothing to be concerned about until I’m having 4 or more . And this is while on the medication to prevent contractions. ha!
Yesterday I experienced a really strange phenomenon – Baby B (Summer) was practice breathing and I could SEE it, THROUGH my stomach. I have felt and seen hiccups happening but this was completely different. I did capture some video of it, but it’s difficult to see. I will post eventually. It lasted for over an hour straight … I thought there was something wrong. But alas, after todays NST, it looks like everything is just fine. Except for the moment when the nurse asked me if my doctors ever mentioned anything about Baby B having an arrhythmia. Uh… no, why… does she??? The nurse thinks so, left and took my results to the doctor on hand and the doctor said everything is good to go. Niiiice.
I’ve officially made it to 32 weeks as of Wednesday. The babies have come soooo far and matured so much physically that they would have a 90% chance if they came into the world now.
But we’re crossing our fingers and hoping they stay put at least until middle of next week since there is a BIG hurricane (Irene) headed our way this weekend. We tried to come up with alternative routes to get to the hospital. Even though we don’t live in a flood zone, almost every route to the hospital has roads we HAVE to take to get there that flood — with just high levels or regular rainfall. Soooo, forget that. We’ll be calling an ambulance to bring us there. B/c not only will roads be closed, but the driving conditions don’t appear to be that good either with 80mph winds headed our way.
We are not really PREPARED for any huge event here at our home. If the electricity goes out, we have candles. We have some food that is non-perishable that we could cook and we have a gas stove/oven we can use once we figure out how to light the pilot. We bought 4 gallons of water, and luckily we don’t have a well, so we can flush the toilets if need be.
Walking the dogs, on the otherhand — we don’t have a backup plan. TH will have to brave the rain and wind with the pups … luckily our wimpy fluffy pups love the rain !!
