The Hannen Family

Why oh why do they call this procedure a ‘non-stress test’? Lol…

You lay on the table while they wrap two big belts around your stomach. One is to monitor for contractions and the other is to record the baby’s heartbeat. They then hand you a little button doodad and you suddenly feel as if you’re on “Jeporady” or something. Now… push the button each time you feel the baby move. Then they walk out and leave you alone for the next 30 minutes.

So what happens? You lay there perfectly still trying to determine every little baby movement while the sound of your baby’s heartbeat is pumped out at loud volume for anyone walking by to hear. Wait.. his heartbeat picked up but I didn’t feel him move. Why the increase? What was that?! He just dropped from 160 to 120 in a few seconds time. Is something wrong?!

Time crawls by and the the OB walks in to rescue you and unplug you from the machine. “Baby looks great!” he simply says with a smile. “Hmmm… are you feeling those contractions?” What? I’m having contractions already? I thought I was just uncomfortable because of his movements. Turns out, he’s moving in reaction to my uterus contracting. Well gee, that explains it I guess. Lol

One good thing has come from my appts twice a week now. We discovered he has at least turned around. Yahoo!! Now he just needs to stay that way! I want to avoid a C-section delivery if at all possible. However, not only has he turned, but he has already started to drop. I have seven weeks to go! At one appt, they found his heartbeat way up by my lower ribs. Just three days later, it was located just above my pubic bone. Umm hello? He doesn’t need to burrow down any further than that, thank you very much!

I go every Monday and Thursday for the non-stress tests. I also go back to the specialist on Thursday, April 5th for another ultrasound to check on his growth rate. I still haven’t gained any weight, but my stomach is sure growing.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 9:36 am and is filed under Kaycee.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.